Part II Grand Canyon
After a horrible night of sleep we were up very early and got ready for the drive up to the Grand Canyon.

If I remember correctly it's about 74 miles and there isn't a whole lot to see when you come up through the south entrance. We parked at Mather Point and began our rim walk.
Now to be completely honest, I'm not super excited about seeing the canyon and I soon find out why.
My fear of heights is a LOT worse than I thought. Figure in my small children, klutziness and no railings and I'm freaking. Seriously.
Most of the photos taken out on the edge were taken by Rob.
Anyway we walked from Mather Point to Hermit's Rest transfer where we took a  bus ride and hopped on and off. Our hike was 2.6 miles, it sure felt like more than that. The kids did fantastic, our only issue was that Wyatt kept walking and we were constantly having him stop and wait for us. We drug the tripod along with us and took several family photos. The one thing we hadn't really considered was that we had to face south into the sun for most of the shots and we have plenty of squinty eyed photos to show for it. Our other problem was as we entered the Village area is that we couldn't find water and we were almost out. They had bottle water to sell but no where to refill our water bottles.

So we hopped on the transfer bus to see a few key or famous locations. We stopped at Powell point, and Hopi point but by then we were all exhausted and hungry. So we skipped Mojave Point and the Abyss.
Rob jumped off at Hermit's rest, the last stop, to take some photos while we hung out in the air conditioned bus.
After a 10 minute wait we headed back to the transfer to catch the next bus that would get us to our truck.

The kids were such troopers and we are very proud of them. Very little complaining and eager to explore.
By the time we got to the truck we were all dragging and that's about the time that it started to rain. A chilly rain.
We decided since we came in the South entrance we would take the east exit and stop at all the views and points that our map pointed out.
Yes we did it in the rain.

Or I should say Rob did it.
I ended up doing the driving. The only bit of driving on our whole vacation :)
The last stop on the way out is the Watchtower. At this time the rain is letting up, I have to go to the little girls room and Rob wants to see this tower.
The kids don't want to leave the video they are watching in the back seat.
Since we were only going to be gone a couple of minutes we locked the doors and set off.
Rob and I walk up to the Watchtower and see the view and we almost immediately turn around to go get the kids. They had to see this.

Sunset was coming soon and you can walk up into the Tower so we took the kids inside to explore.
Afterwards as we waited for the sunset the kids got a chance to run around and explore.
Rob spent most of his time taking group pictures for other people.
The rain had moved on and the foggy clouds were lifting.
Further to the east was a rainbow and almost a double rainbow. Wouldn't you know I had taken my polarizing filter off my camera. dang it.

The weather changed so many times in that 20 or so minutes and each stage had it's own beauty.
By the time the sunset was over we loaded back to the truck and headed into the darkness for our camp in Flagstaff.
We arrived around 9pm, after a quick drive through McD's and ate a few bites before we crawled into bed and promptly slept like rocks.
Tomorrow Part III- Sunset Crater, Wupatki Ruins and Walnut Canyon
*Carrie*