THE Trip, THE GRAND Canyon, Day 3

Copyright 2011, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

This is our last full day at the Grand Canyon, South Rim, and today we will travel east from the Village, which we can do with Big Butt, excepting for one point, where the Orange Bus takes you.  We didn't see this, the Yaki Point.

We did however stop at every pull off and all points of interest, all the way out to Desert View.  Today, I took well over 330 photos!  Click, click, click, isn't digital photography fun??

It was W-I-N-D-Y, lets make that G-U-S-T-Y and W-I-N-D-Y!!!  We saw a sign that said the gusts were 40 MPH, HA HA.  My take, one rather snarly gust that nearly took the camera out of my hands, blew dust in our eyes and all but tossed me to the ground on my hind end was a whole lot more than 40, I would guess between 50 and 60, but since I did not have an anemometer (measures wind speeds) attached to my jacket, you are just going to have to take my word for it, a few of those gusts were incredible!

We had thought that all that wind might make the visibility worse, but, it seemed to do just the opposite.  Man and I both felt the vis was much better this second day, the closest canyon walls we felt were almost crystal clear.  That said, the photos don't really tell the same story, there is still considerable haze.  Go figure.  It has to be that distance thingy, it appears the structures in the Canyon and beyond are close, but in reality, they can be miles away.   Couple that haze and distance with bright dazzling almost blinding sun, and it is easy to see that photographing the Grand Canyon is a challenge on the best of days.

Back to that wind stuff.  Here is another facet of the story.  It was going to be a rather cool day, and something possessed us to think that we could leave a window open with the ceiling vents running for air movement (to keep the fur kids coolish).  So, we did just that.  When we returned in the early evening I found dark brown Grand Canyon dust all over the surfaces of Tana. Massive amounts of that dust.  It was, mmm, nasty!  I will be cleaning Grand Canyon dust for weeks, oh, isn't it grand??  (Sorry, sick play on words.)  Man took pressurized air to the Baby HP and the external keyboard the next AM, and blew out a lot of dust.  SIGHHH.  Nope, no more air conditioner-less days for a while for this gang!  LOL

But, I digress, back to the east side tour.  Again, we are amazed and overwhelmed at each turn out, each vista.   I could not resist sharing this panoramic photo (remember clicking on the photo takes you to a larger view, click your back button to return to Reflections).

Below, if you look very carefully, you can just barely see in the background, Humphreys Peak (12,633 feet tall) part of the San Francisco Peaks.  It is 48 miles away!  Look to the right side of the photo, above the tree line, the peaks are snow covered.

And, of course, because I want to share too many photos, I have prepared a slide show, and here it comes.  Yes, there are several photos of the same areas of the canyon, taken from different view points.




There are a few more photos that I want to share from our visit to the Grand Canyon, coming here at Reflections in the next several days.



*Our visit to the Grand Canyon, Day 3, was on April 21, 2011.