Grand Canyon 2012!!!

I love spontaneous road trips! There is something so very exciting about not having a plan and just hitting the road, and seeing what happens along the way.  Now, we did have a plan kinda… we had iphones.  We had directions to the south rim of the Grand Canyon and had a trunk full of food, backpacks and camping gear.  We were off.

It’s a lovely journey through the California desert; the landscape unchanging…boring.  There are a few highlights like the little town of Boron and Barstow, where we spent our first night.  When you don’t plan, you have to take what you can get. So, we took a room at the Travelodge (chosen because of it’s price and it’s proximity to a Starbucks) and, we also had to deal with the cockroaches in the bathroom…. Ahhh, wine coolers helped with that!  Oh, let me also mention that Timmy from hotels.com was very helpful in us finding the Travelodge.  I am not sure of any of you out there have connections to people in Tennessee, but Timmy is hoping to move there from the Philippines to find a wife.  He was curious to know if there are any single women in the United States. We told them they are mostly in Tennessee, so he picked a good state to move to ;) Good Luck Timmy!

After leaving later on Saturday afternoon and spending the night in Barstow we where on our way to the Grand Canyon early Sunday morning, after a caffeine drive through at Starbucks.  We arrived at the park mid-afternoon with high hopes to get a camping spot at a first come first serve campground.  The park ranger at the entrance was quick to point out with the roll of his eyes that camping sites usually are reserved months in advance and we would probably have to camp outside the park.   We drove on to the campground just make sure there where no cancellations, and we were in luck! We got the last site, YAY! So, we quickly set up camp and got on our way to the visitors center.

This is the exciting part… the actual canyon!  To be honest I didn’t realize we were that close to the canyon while at the Visitors Center.  I was expecting to bum around the campsite and information centers planning our hike in the canyon the following day.  I was wrong, we got see amazing views for the rest of the day while we hiked and took buses to different view points along the rim.  It is definitely a site worth seeing. I feel like the word breathtaking is over used in describing it but it is so true people!  It is so huge, vast and natural.  We later enjoyed a hike down in the canyon and enjoyed the different vantage points.  After the hike we relaxed by the campsite for the rest of the day.  The second night of sleeping on rocks in the a sleeping bag was enough for me, so morning came and we were ready to hit the road again; back to Visalia.

It was just a really great trip!