Day Seven Vacation - Thursday, April 5, 2007

Today we traveled to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. We took the Grand Canyon Railways train there. The train ride was 2 hours and 15 minutes long there and the same back, of course. The day started off with breakfast at the buffet, the Wild West show and then we boarded the train. The trains are all refurbished vintage steam engines. They were really neat, inside and out. The railway was abandonded in 1968 due to the popularity of the automobile, but Max and Thelma Biegert bought it in 1989 and the Grand Canyon Railway was reborn. The train was "robbed" on the return trip by the cowboys from the Wild West show earlier in the day. It was pretty neat!

The Grand Canyon was absolutely breathtaking! It is hard to imagine how anything this beautiful was created except at the hand of God. I would have liked to the hike the 2 mile trail to Yavapai Observation Station, but Gary was not in favor of it so we kind of milled around the Grand Canyon Village area for our 3 1/2 hours. The views were spectacular. The weather was a bit cooler than in Tucson, but it was still wonderful. The morning was cool and we opted to wear jeans, but I wished I would have worn shorts as it quickly warmed up to the mid to upper 70's. I got some fantastic photos! And I'm getting much braver about asking strangers to take shots of all of us, so I can actually say that "yes" I was there, too!! I'd love to come back to the Grand Canyon again someday. It's incredible.

We arrived back at the train depot around 7:00 p.m. pretty darn tired!

So, until next time...