I went to the Grand Canyon with Charlie over the last weekend. Out of the 700 and some odd miles, I drove no more than 10 miles. I am still learning how to drive a stick. The hardest part of it is controlling the clutch and realizing that if I don't step it all the way, I can't switch gears. It is hard to change the habit of having my left foot doing nothing to having my left foot stepping on the clutch. I feel kind of bad that Charlie drove so much.

The Grand Canyon is REALLY COOL. I've never seen anything like it in my life, except pictures of it. I was amazed by the layers of rocks and sediments formed by erosion. It is really beautiful.

We got to the Grand Canyon on Friday night and went into the national park on Saturday. We started out @ Mather point. The view was really spectacular. I don't think pictures can do justice to the actual thing. (Or i am just a really bad photographer. hehe) Then, we took the shuttle all the way to Hermit Rest. That is the beginning of some really nice trailheads down to the river. Instead of walking down to the river and back in one day, which is not recommended by the rangers, we walked the Rim Trail. The Rim Trail from Hermit Rest to the Village Blue Route Transfer Point is about 8 miles long. We thought about walking all the 8 miles plus the 2 miles from the Transfer Point to Mather Point. We probably started our hike around one or two. It was really hot and really dry. I kept drinking water like a fish in a drying pond hoping to stay alive. Of course, I had to go to the restroom in the middle of the hike where there was no restroom available. (Sigh) I had to release myself in the wild... We walked for 5 miles and called it a quit. I think we walked for about 3-4 hours, and then we hopped on the shuttle to go back. At around 7pm, we went to Yavapai Observation Station to watch the sunset. :). That was really beautiful. Then we went to have dinner at Bright Angel Restaurant and went back to Yavapai Observation Station to watch the stars. Thus concluding our first full day @ the Grand Canyon.

Yesterday (Sunday), we woke up at 4:30AM to drive back to the Grand Canyon to watch the sunrise. :D. That was one of the few sunrises I've seen in my life, since I never wake up early enough to enjoy the sunrise. We went to Pipe Creek Vista point on the eastern side of the South Rim. The morning was brisk cold. We stood on the edge of a cliff, watched the sun slowly coming up, and listened to the birds chirping happily. If you get Charlie's version of the sunrise, he'll probably mention to you how excited I seemed when I was waiting for the sunrise. Even though I was bouncing up and down, it wasn't exactly from excitement. I was bouncing because I needed to generate more body heat, since I was FREEZING. The sunrise was definitely a sight. :) If you ever go to the Grand Canyon to watch the sunrise, I think I will suggest you to go to Desert View for it. I think the view from there would be even more stunning. We went back to the hotel to take a nap after the sunrise...Sleep is always good. :D.

The second part of Sunday consisted going to Desert View. Pei got to drive a stick shift car! I have to be honest with you, I was horribly nervous... When I saw the sign for the Grandview Point, I told Charlie that we are going in there to take a look. That was my excuse of getting out of the whole driving thing. I don't know if yesterday was just cooler overall or if the east side of the south rim is cooler than the west side of the south rim. Yesterday's weather was pretty nice. The view from the east side is definitely different than the view from the west side. We got to Desert View, and it was really amazing. I saw a small plateau (just like the one they would show you in your earth science class), the river, and some other really cool rock formations. I just love how all those cliffs have layers and each layer has a color different from the color of the layers above and below. The watch tower was pretty neat too. It had Native Americans'drawings... :)

We then took Rt. 64 through through the Navajo Tribal Park and came back to Tucson. The Navajo Traibal Park is also really pretty... It makes me wonder how exactly Native Americans lived hundreds of years ago...

That was the end of our trip at the Grand Canyon. I had a splendid time in the outdoor. If I ever have a chance to go again, I would. I would really like to camp there, so that I could actually take the real trails to go down to the river. Seriously, I wonder what the view would be like from the bottom of the gorge looking up the cliffs... It must be really amazing.

:)