Grand Canyon – Part Three: Desert View Tower (Coconino County, AZ) – August 2008

 I originally posted some of these pictures with a travel blog write-up (and the link to the original was below).  I decided I wanted to share all the pictures I took of a particular area of point of interest, so some of these you will have seen before if you’ve been following this blog for a bit.  The link below gives more of the details, so I’m not going to rehash them here.  You’ll see that as I’d gotten a digital camera around this time, the number of pictures of an area has increased.

 I’d mentioned that after soaking up the Grand Canyon Village, I drove back towards the East Wall so I could check out Desert View Tower.  There had been hardly anyone in the park when I came through at the ass-crack of dawn, and now those quiet spots where I was able to enjoy the view of nature in all her majesty were filled annoying noisy tourists.  I’d made the right call to go when I did.

 Desert View Tower had a vantage point on the roof, but it didn’t change the view of the Canyon much.  There were some exhibits about the native population of the area, but beyond that there was little inside.  Stopping there was still a good thing, because it was one of the few places in the area where you could get fuel.  Driving in Arizona means when you get to a half-tank, you fill-up at the next point you can, because you don’t know when the next one was.  Visiting the Grand Canyon was the number one thing on my Bucket List, and it was the experience I wanted it to be (and more).  Plan successful!

 

https://traveljournalbydave.blogspot.com/2012/09/day-three-sunday-17august-2008-days.html

 

Grand Canyon – Part Two: The Main Canyon (Coconino County, AZ) – August 2008

 I originally posted some of these pictures with a travel blog write-up (and the link to the original was below).  I decided I wanted to share all the pictures I took of a particular area of point of interest, so some of these you will have seen before if you’ve been following this blog for a bit.  The link below gives more of the details, so I’m not going to rehash them here.  You’ll see that as I’d gotten a digital camera around this time, the number of pictures of an area has increased.

 As I drove westward along the road which would take me to Grand Canyon Village, I stopped at a few interesting places.  I hiked a portion of the Rim Trail, and checked some stop-off points for good vistas.  I wandered around the Village area a bit, and then started a trail which took me down into the canyon.  The issue that most people run into was going down (which was easy), and then not having the energy (or water) to come back out.  I’d visually pick out a point, take pictures, go to that point, take some more pictures, and then decided if I could go further.  That worked out well, as I had the energy to get back to the top.  Had a nice chocolate milkshake after I did that too.

 Farther east of the Village was a place called the Skywalk.  It was a huge glass platform which would allow you to walk out over the Canyon.  I really wanted to do that, but it was over twice the distance from the East Wall to the Village, and not in the direction I’d need to be going to get back to Flagstaff.  Unfortunately I passed on that part, but I’d seen quite a bit to have the day be enjoyable.  My plan was to head back to Desert View Tower (as it wasn’t open when I was there in the morning), and then reassess if I wanted to make my way to dinosaur tracks north of that point.

https://traveljournalbydave.blogspot.com/2012/09/day-three-sunday-17august-2008-days.html