So, I didn't get out of Sedona till quite a bit later then thought I would and didn't make it to Flagstaff till about 11pm. I had booked a place according to Epedia based on location and price. Well, right after my shower I found I had booked wrong motel of sorts. I could hear the fun being had in the room next to mine with bed slamming against the wall. As you an tell, I didn't end up with the best night's sleep as the fun times went stereo at 6am. Anyway, it was good invitation to get on the road early at least. I had another 2 hours of driving to hit the main part of the Grand Canyon to do and didn't want to deal with crowds if I could help it. None the less it took about 20 minutes to get past the gate even that early in the morning (and off season). I promptly got lost in Grand Canyon Village for the next 30 minutes too. The roads and signage were less then stellar to say the least. The build up of village was odd too. Anyway, I finally broke down and sat tight for about 20 minutes while pured over maps to figure out what I wanted to do. I ended up doing one of the most done hikes you can do in the Grand Canyon. So ya, it actually took me about an hour to find the stupid canyon . . .
As you can tell, visiting the grand canyon itself wasn't really on the top of my agenda for this trip. But my main thoughts for visiting were of course, I had never visited it (other then in photos) and it was on the way to one of those places I had really wanted to go to (see part III). Part of my blah atitude for visiting the canyon was I knew I could really only visit for a day at best and I'd be hitting the most touristy part of too. I was happy though I wasn't hitting it in August (as it would bee too fucking hot, hazy and filled with even more tourest)and Iknew I'd kick myself if I had just blown it off too.
So, I did the Rim/Hermit trail hike. Basically you start at the Bright Angle lodge in the Village and follow the rim of the Grand Canyon till you hit Hermit's Rest. It's about 5.5 miles and fairly flat hike. Dumb me didn't pack much in the way of water though, but I still easily did the walk with two camera's in tow. While the breath of the canyon is really something to see, their was also a mild haze, which made for less then stellar photography. Then add that I was doing this walk during the mid day, meant less then stellar lighting too. That having been said, I oddly enjoined the company I kept running into while on the trail. I rarely head English spoken, with a lot of French, German what I think was Brazilian being spoken with smidgen of Chinese and Spanish along the way. I've oddly come to like hearing non-english being spoken when I explore. The hike took me to most of the same well worn landmarks you'd see along this part of the canyon too. At the end I opted to take the bus back, which was it's own short story. I headed directly to the back of the bus, not really wanted to deal with where some had thrown up seat on the trip to Hermit's rest for obvious reasons. AS we traveled back, the bus quickly began to fill up too. At one point a muslim family boarded and the husband in the group couldn't sit with his kids and wife, so he ended up at the rear of the bus with me. At the next stop a large load of Merkians boarded and none of them would sit next to him. And older couple quickly settled next to me as I had my Powells books tshirt on and they were from the Pacific Northwest and we settled into Portland talk pretty quickly. But despite the crowding, this poor guy was being ignored for, well, for obvious reasons so to say. I can't really stand this type of behavior where everyone isn't being obviously racists, but in fact is being racist. It's stupid as fuck. None of this is generally helped by me as I tend to be anti social and not very chatty with complete strangers to start with. So as we approached the village I leaned out and asked him how he and his family were enjoying their trip. The depressed look on his face immediately did a 180 at this point and he told us he and his family were enjoying their stay in Northern Arizona. the older couple kind of took it from there and added into the conversation at that point. What amused me the most I hate to say was that the guy and his family were native born US citizens and from Indianpolis. The Indianaplis part actually made me laugh, as it surpassed the older couple quite a bit. That just about made my day.
Lunch back in the village was pretty uneventful and as I knew I needed to hit the road again I was back on the road following the canyon rim. I stopped from time to time to snap a few pictures and even took a 30 minute hike out one of outcrops to try and get a shot of the breath of the canyon. The hike was nice, but shots I got were blah. Oh well. I did end up stopping at last fire look out and hiked around as the magic hour hit. I think I got my best shots here of the canyon, but I still had about 2 hours of driving and didn't want to be as late as I had been the day before, so as soon as I could, I was back on the road again.
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