The Canyon of Grand

The entire time my mother and I were driving near the Grand Canyon the theme somg from "National Lampoon's Family Vacation" was stuck in my head.  The lyrics "Holiday Rooo-oooo-ooo-oooad" repeated incessantly in my head.  That constant nuisance was worth our entire visit to the national park.  When we stopped at the first view point my Mom stepped out of the car and literally gasped out loud.  She tried to share her excitement with the visitors next to her, but they weren't quite as enthused, giving her a gratuitous nod.  But there ain't no denying, it was a spectacular view and quite unbelievable that something like that was created on the earth.

While we were driving from the South Rim to the North Rim there was a stop to see the "Navajo Bridge" that had an amazing view over the Colorado River.  Actually when you first looked over the edge the height was creepily high, hence my reaction above.  (Okay, it may have been staged.)  It sort of reminded me of the scene from "The Rescuers Down Under" with the river that has all the alligators (or crocodiles).  However, there were no alligators in this river...at least I don't think so.  On the right I'm exhibiting my useful gift of sight.  They were at this place with a huge tower that was supposed to give you the best view of the canyon.  Truthfully, it was hot, crowded, small, lame, and there was Native American type pictography, but it was completely fake because the building was erected in 1930.  What a complete waste of space.

Sitting on this rock was so scary because literally on the other side was this huge drop-off.  But hey, anything for a classy picture, right?

As Mom and I were almost to the North Rim I looked on the map to see where what my mom called "the glass staircase" was.  I'm looking, I'm looking, I find it!...only problem...it's on the complete opposite side of the canyon.  Not even in the South Rim.  I try to gently break this to my mom, but her heart is broken, that's all she wanted to see the entire trip.  I had to show her the map over and over again to explain to her that it would take forever to get there.  We finally decided that on one of trips to Los Angeles we would just make a pit stop outside of Vegas and go see it.  It's just funny that we basically based our entire trip off seeing this one monument, and nope, nada, no visit.  I was still very pleased with the park as it was on the North and South Rim, minus the extremely corny music they play in the visitor centers.  They can do without.  Overall --> a very successful trip.