Doing the Canyon

April 10, 2012

Hard to see, but the petroglyph is there

Up and at it a little earlier than usual for us, we chowed down and went to find a parking spot so we could hop on the shuttle bus. We had several different shuttle bus trips planned for the day. We started with the Hermit’s Rest trip. But first we took the village shuttle and stopped at the Bright Angel Trailhead. We all started down the trail, but when it rounded a bend that was on a drop off, Betty and Wilma stopped and Fred and Barney went on alone. We had been told just after the first tunnel were some petroglyphs, so they went down to see them.
Then we transferred to the Hermit’s Rest shuttle. We thought we would go to the end and do our stopping on the way back, but they do more stops on the way out, and only three on the way back. So we got off at several stops, looked around and then hopped another bus. Two of the stops were fairly close together, so we walked between the two. If you get on and ride the whole trip without getting off, it takes over an hour, so with stops you can spend quite a bit of the day on just one trip. Our stamps were at the end of the trip out, the Hermit’s Rest stop, and we enjoyed looking around there. They had a huge fireplace that was very interesting to see. There is a little snack bar there and they had freshly baked cookies that were smelling up the whole place. Of course we had to buy some, and they were really good.
As we were at the railing looking over the edge, an older man started talking to us. He was there with his son who was about our age, and the son was getting real embarrassed with his dad. The dad was telling us that the WPA built the Grand Canyon during the depression and if the depression had lasted longer the canyon would have been bigger. That evolved into what was dug out formed the Rocky Mountains. We really had some laughs with him.
After our trip out there, we went back for some lunch, showers and laundry, and then decided that was enough for the day.
We really enjoyed our trip to the Grand Canyon, much more than we had expected to. It was crowded, but like one of the drivers told us, later it will be wall to wall. Even now, the late afternoon shuttle buses were just packed. We did it right by going early in the day.