Grand Once More

As advertised - we started our morning with a trip to the Grand Canyon National Park Visitors Center here in Williams to claim my National Park Geezers Pass. In just a few short minutes and after payment of my $10 fee I am now able to enter National Parks and a  bunch of State Parks for free - yippee! I mentioned to Peggy that she was also eligible for a Geezer Pass - but she insisted that she was not a "Geezer" and instead announced that she would simply hang around with me and get in for free anyway. Actually I like that plan - makes me feel wanted and needed!

After taking care of that business we crossed the street and ordered up a yummy breakfast at the Pine Country Cafe. I highly recommend their southwestern omelet ... and the pies looked pretty yummy too!

With all that taken of we visited the local Safeway and bought all the stuff we needed to fill all the empty spaces in our cupboards. There - that ought to get us a few more hundred miles down the road.

Now it was time to take advantage of that new Geezer card so off we went to the south rim. After a leisurely 50 mile ride we arrived at the Mather Point Visitors Center. I'm pretty sure this facility was not in operation on our last two visits so we took a brief walkthrough and watched the 15 minute film on the Canyon and a bit of its history. Then we decided to walk the south rim trail from Mather Point to Bright Angel Lodge - a little over 2.5 miles. 

That little walk took us about an hour as walked a little, gawked a little, and I watched Peggy take a bunch of pictures. As I've stated before, the Grand Canyon is an awesome sight - especially when you see it for the first time. But its pretty awesome even on the fourth trip! I'm going to post a few pictures here - but they really didn't turn out very good as the sun was all wrong. 

These from sunset back in 2005 are much better.

So ... after walking more than my daily limit we called it quits, rode the shuttle bus back to where we left the car, and then drove back to Williams. A full day for sure.

Tomorrow we plan on continuing our eastward trip ... but not necessarily by the most direct route. Tomorrow's destination - Mesa Verde National Park. We haven't visited this park before so I'm really looking forward to it. 

We might as well get our money's worth out of that new Geezer Card!