30th December 2020

Monument Valley – Grand Canyon

Wow, what a day today was. Gina and I got up at the crack of dawn to see the sunrise. As it turned out the sun rose behind one of the mesas. It was still an amazing sight watching the sun slowly light up Monument Valley.

First up, Craig, Maddy, Lidsey and I decided to try the canyon trail that left from our resort. It started off easy but we soon lost the trail. A few slopes that were slid down on my butt and we joined a road and was able to find the trail again. We ended up at the end of a box canyon with straight red sandstone walls rising up on 3 sides. It was absolutely amazing and I’m glad I kept going on the hike. There were a couple of times I felt like turning around.

Gina:

Oh, this was a very interesting day! I got up with Joanne at 7 am to watch the sunrise over the monuments. We hiked a little way up the trail to wait for the sun to rise. And wait, and wait, and wait. It is much easier to tell when the sun will rise in Florida where everything is flat. Anyway, the wait ended up being worth it, the sunrise was like nothing I’ve ever seen.

So then we start on our drive to Grand Canyon. We passed through Flagstaff on the way, where I got a call from the walk in clinic we had taken Brianna to in Phoenix for antibiotics for an infection. They had told me they would call on Wednesday if they needed to change what they had prescribed so I called them back. We decided to wait in Flagstaff in case we needed a new prescription. And we waited on hold for 20 minutes to find out that the number I called was for their central facility, not the clinic we had been to, and that they couldn’t get hold of that clinic and couldn’t tell me anything. Brian had the brilliant idea to call the actual clinic who told me the prescription was fine. So, on we went to the Grand Canyon.

When we checked the weather for this trip we knew it would be colder than Florida, so we packed jeans and long sleeved shirts. We even brought winter coats. We apparently have completely forgotten what cold is. We also didn’t plan on snow. So we were a bit chilly when we got our first glimpse of the Grand Canyon. Those who know me will be completely shocked when I say it left me speechless. You really can’t describe it in either words or pictures. On a pretty funny note, we decided to take the free shuttle back to our room instead of walking the mile back, only to ride in a circle pretty much back to where we started and walk back to the room anyway. At least we got warm on the bus and some good exercise in!

Maddy:

Even though we couldn’t go into monument valley because with was closed, we were still served with spectacular views. The first day we got there it was cloudy enough so that the sun and sunset could still shine through and make the sky pretty over the monuments. We could see the tall rocks from our deck on our little cabin, but it was a little too cold to sit outside and enjoy the scenery. The next morning we went for a hike along the canyons behind our cabins. It was sort of magical with a little bit of snow everywhere on the ground. It glistened in the sun as we walked, and I was in awe as we got further into the canyon. It was a trek to climb over the rocks, but it was worth it because the massive walls of rock that surrounded us were beautiful.

We left Monument Valley as soon as we returned from our hike. On the road to The Grand Canyon there were some dinosaur footprints we stopped to see. I recalled the dinosaurs footprints in Winston Queensland that had a shelter over them and boardwalks to view them. These footprints were just beside the road and you can walk all over them. As we were looking another car pulled up and someone got out dressed in a dinosaur suit … quite bizarre.

After leaving the dinosaur tracks we headed on to The Grand Canyon. We made it before the Dewitts and checked in. We waited for them before we headed to the rim to get a view of the famous canyon. It was about a 10 minute walk to the rim from our accommodation. It had snowed recently so we had to be careful for ice on the path.

Even though I’ve been to The Grand Canyon before it didn’t didn’t fail to impress. With the light covering of snow in the foreground and the amazing canyon in the background the view was awesome.

All of the driving was worth the view.

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