The Grand Canyon

Let me first be clear that me and my siblings were kids when we went on most of these trips, and looking back we are grateful for our parents putting up with us and taking us anyway.

Looking at television and history books, the Grand Canyon is portrayed as one of the most wonderful and exciting things to happen in nature, carved by the "majestic" Colorado River over a very long period of time.  The pictures of it are amazing and beautiful almost beyond description, the stats wants you to believe that it is the greatest thing ever. Lies.

It is easily a natural wonder, in that there is nothing else in the world like it, but can you spend an entire day there during the dead and dry heat of an Arizona summer? Well sure, if you want to go stir crazy and then die of heat stroke. Me and my whole family went there once when I was a little kid, and it wasn't the most pleasant time I've ever had, as a matter of fact I hated it. I was a kid, I didn't give a crap about beautiful scenery or any of  the stuff my parents loved. They dragged me, my older brother and my younger sister around on these trips every single 3 day weekend and sometimes regular weekends except for memorial day, where we would catch our breath. This was only a small part of our "big summer trip," which we would take every summer, where we drove to a national park somewhere and camped, then camped somewhere else, then drove 300 miles and camped somewhere else, because camping was cheaper than hotels (Me and my siblings hated camping too, but in hindsight our tent/popup was much cleaner than a disgusting hotel room).  Anyway, back to the main topic.

Our first impression, or the general feeling we got, of the Grand Canyon was as follows: "Wow that's cool...........okay where to next." I mean I thought it was impressive, and I'll never forget it, but all you need to do there is look at it, take it in, and then leave. It was a very hot summer and the sun was beating down on us so that only hurried us along. We stayed for a while and looked around, it felt wrong to just leave right after seeing it. Ok, not really but that's how my mom felt so we were pretty much trapped.

After going back to the canyon when I was 18, I appreciated it more, and we spent an entire day there, it was peaceful and actually not that bad. But most importantly it wasn't hot.