2For66

May 3, 2015

When we arrived at the Grand Canyon the afternoon of the day before I, of course, grabbed some pictures. With the afternoon light it was difficult to show the depth of the curves and sub canyons; it was also hard to capture the true colors that make this place so spectacularly beautiful. The evening pictures did a better job but I really wanted to see what morning light would bring.

We set our alarm for 5:20, quickly dressed and headed up the rim trail from El Tovar hotel. As the sun rose over the period of about 30 minutes and as we moved along up the trail, we saw an ever-changing panorama of light, depth, vibrance. We then went in for a tasty breakfast, came back out to hike a little over 2 miles east on the rim trail.

Here are the pictures in the order they were taken. [I jumped the gun with a few of the sunrise photos, posting them on Facebook directly from my camera via Play Memories Mobile (a Sony app) on my iPhone.]

We were sprinkled on the day before. A more serious rainstorm rolled in later Sunday.

The following pictures were taken along our 2 mile walk east on the rim trail from El Tovar motel.

We caught the orange bus back to the transfer point, then the blue bus back to our hotel. I showered and packed and we headed down the road to Flagstaff then Cottonwood.

We stopped for a fabulous lunch at Satchmo’s, a barbecue joint in Flagstaff. Carla and I had brisket with different sides. The red beans and rice was good enough to stand on its own and could grab a steady stream of customers at a food cart in Portland (aka food town USA). Carla liked the vinegar-based slaw and the brisket was tender, moist; in a word: delicious.

In order to complete another portion of Route 66, we headed out on an old county road through Flagstaff, east to Winona. There isn’t enough town left of Winona to warrant a line in a song today but it was nice to drive this stretch of forested road. We then doubled back to Flagstaff on I40, then down I17 to visit my uncle and aunt in Cottonwood. Having a down day on May 4 allowed me to get caught up on the blog. We’ll see how long that lasts.