Grand Canyon - Going East from the Village - June 2, 2009

OK, I know this is backtracking on the actual trip, but I wanted to share a little more about our second day at the Grand Canyon. If you have been following this blog you will know that we started this day with the sun rise. Because of this we were all too tired to blog later that day, so this is my attempt to catch up.

There was already light in the eastern sky when we first arrived at Mather Point.


The sky starts to brighten up...


Finally the sun breaks the horizon...


Coming back from the sun rise excursion we came across three elk nibbling the grass right in front of El Tovar. By the time I got out my camera they were going down the hill towards the GC Railroad station. That is were this shot is from.


This picture is for Roberta because she thinks the elk have "cute" butts. (I can't explain -- must be a girl thing.)


We also saw deer several times in GC but didn't get pictures of them.

After returning to the hotel we had breakfast at the Bright Angel Lodge (as we did every other day we were at the Grand Canyon) because it was some less expensive than at El Tovar. Then we headed out to Desert View (23 miles to the east) in our car. The plan was to sight see at various sites and overlooks on the way back to the village. In earlier posts we have shown pictures of the observatiton tower at Desert View. Below is a shot of the "view". This is one of many because there is something to see in almost every direction from the tower. It is a little more hazy this day than it was on Monday, but still the views of the Canyon are impressive.


Our next stop after Desert View was at the Tusayan Ruin and Museum.


This was followed by a stop at Grandview, where there had been an early hotel (prior to the construction of the RR and El Tovar).





Our final stop before returning to the village area was at Yavapai point, which had an "observation station" at what was determined in the 1920's to be the "best" spot from which the view the Grand Canyon from the rim.



From here you can see the footbridge across the Colorado River that allows passage to Phatom Ranch from south rim trails.



It certainly has a great view from both inside the observation station and out and interesting historical and geological displays inside to complement the views.



At this point we returned to our hotel for a well deserved nap!