We got an early start this morning since we needed to meet our bus for the Desert View Tour at 9:10 am. We were so early that we had time to eat breakfast here at the motel and do some shopping at a couple of gift shops at the Yavapei Lodge and still be early for our tour! Much improvement over yesterday!
This tour was awesome! The driver/tour guide was named Bob and he has worked at several Federal parks and was a history major. He was a wealth of information about the park, its history, the plants, animals, other sights nearby, etc. He even takes great picture! LOL We SOOO enjoyed this tour. There were only 19 of us on the tour so the bus was not crowded. We never would have found out the tidbits or even known where to go if we had driven ourselves around. I took TONS AND TONS of pictures. So much to see and want to remember.
The last stop was at Desert View where the Watchtower is located. It is a recreation of a prehistoric Indian lookout. We climbed to the top (4 stories) and the view was breathtaking. We could see all the way to the painted desert. After climbing down, we walked to the snack bar and got some lunch. The weather was so perfect, we ate outside. A raven decided to join us, begging for food. But it is illegal to feed the wildlife within the park, so I just took pictures of him. He seemed to enjoy posing, and he was quite vocal, too!
After the tour, we took some shopping time. I even bought a "plant your own cacti kit" that the store employee assured me would be fine in carry-on on the plane. I wanted my own little piece of Arizona to take home. And I have bought tons of magnets... I always do. I've also bought myself about 3 pairs of earrings. Mom has bought quite a bit, too... we will probably be shipping some stuff home! LOL We even found scrapbooking items specific to the Grand Canyon.
After shopping, we were SOOO tired. The high elevation really does affect you. I didn't realize. It was about 2:30 - 3, and we went ahead and left the park. We did a little shopping out here near the motel and went to see the IMAX movie about the Grand Canyon. It was really good and you felt like you were THERE - on the river, riding the rapids to gliding in the air over the canyon. (Speaking of rapids, the tour guide told us that all other rivers have rapids graded on a scale from 1-5... except the Colorado River which runs through the canyon. It goes from 1-10!!) I barely lived going down the Chattahoochee on a tube... I would NEVER try it here!!
I am really tired now... so I will finish today's recap tomorrow night...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment