The Big Hole Revisited


I am not sure that we could get tired of the views of the Grand Canyon.  Today was a little unique.  It was partly cloudy.  The sun filtering down into the canyon made for different views.  Some areas of the canyon would be in sunshine while other areas would be shadowed.  I doubt our pictures will show the subtleties, but we took an awful lot of them.

Today we avoided the major crowds by staying away from the Village and the Visitor Centre.  We explored the eastern end of the South Rim.  It is just as spectacular but a whole lot less people bother to drive out there…fantastic!  Once again, I cannot list all the superlatives that could describe our experience so I will not even try.  Our memories of this visit (and maybe the 1000 pictures we took) will last forever.

Distance Traveled = 265 km.  Wildlife Sightings = Elk, Rabbit, Alberts Squirrel, Lesser Goldfinch, House Finch, Turkey Vulture, Mountain Bluebird, House Wren, Barn Swallow, White-throated Swift, Violet-green Swallows.


Sunset from campsite...imagine from a KOA!


The Colorado River


The effects of partial sun, partial shade


It's the layers that count!


The Desert View Watchtower...we climbed it!


Elk


Sun/cloud creating colour

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Some Final Thoughts

Image
I have always found it difficult to write the final blog.   This one is no different.   As we pulled into our yard last evening, reality hit…this adventure had come to an end.   But we have so many memories. Being on the road for 3 ½ months, we traveled 22,742 km through 23 States and 1 Province.   We know that we will be asked, “What was your favourite place that you visited?”   That is impossible to answer.   We saw and experienced so many things.   The variety of landscapes in the United States is simply ‘mind boggling’!   It has so many beautiful National Parks and we had the pleasure of visiting quite a few of them. It is time to wrap this up.   We would like to thank all the people who have taken the time to follow our travels.   It has been fun to share our experiences with you once again. We would also like to thank all of our friends and family who shared in and made our adventure possible.   Without your help...
Read more

Up One Side and Down the Other

Image
We drove north today to South Dakota’s capital City, Pierre.   It is pronounced ‘Peer’…only the Americans can pronounce a clearly French word in such a manner.   Pierre has a population of only 14,000.   It is the 2 nd smallest US State Capital.   There is also nothing there.   If you wanted to tour their capital buildings, you had to give them 48 hours notice…not sure what that was about.   Didn’t matter, we probably would not have anyway! What we did get to do today though, was drive up one side of the ‘Mighty Mo’ (The Missouri River) and down the other.   The river is a big one.   In places it is 2 miles wide.   It has a large water shed and this is the river that caused a lot of the flooding problems in the late Spring and early Summer.   It is still running far higher than usual for this time of year.   It dumps into the Mississippi.   We can only imagine how bad things must have gotten down in Louisiana after we ...
Read more

A Day to Do Nothing

Image
Once again it rained all night and most of the morning.   We are glad we did not have to take down the tent trailer.   Again, things are wet.   Today we truly did nothing.   The most exciting thing was having breakfast in a Norwegian Restaurant in the town of Hayward.   We will be back on the trail east tomorrow. Distance Traveled = 29 km.   Wildlife Sightings = Red-breasted Nuthatch, Sandhill Crane, Robin, Black-capped Chickadee, Chipping Sparrow. Rather interesting campsite...surprisingly private! Only in Wisconsin...can you tell it was a slow day?
Read more