Fernanda & Karl - Road Trip, Day 14 -- Website by Now Interactive Solutions

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Vermont
03/26/10

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08/08/09

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07/18/09

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04/10/09

Weihnachten, 2008
12/24/08

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11/22/08

Vania's Visit
11/15/08

Marden's visit
11/08/08

Autumn hiking, Ramapo, NJ
10/18/08

Oktoberfest 2008, Hackensack
10/04/08

Labor Day Pool Party
08/31/08

Philharmonic in the Park (yet again)
06/24/08

Fernanda's Parents Come to Visit
06/02/08

Memorial Day Weekend in CT with Missy
05/26/08

Fernanda's Birthday Party, 2008
05/17/08

Katja comes to visit!
04/20/08

Spring 2008
04/12/08

Nikhil's Karaoke Birthday Bar Party
04/05/08

Cross-country Skiing in New England
02/09/08

Karl's Birthday Party 2008
01/26/08

Xmas 2007
12/24/07

Syncsort Xmas 2007
12/08/07

Oktoberfest in our Apartment
10/06/07

Crash!
09/15/07

Nebraska, Iowa
09/13/07

Wyoming, Nebraska, Blow-out
09/12/07

[...]
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Friday, August 31, 2007

Road Trip, Day 14

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Grand Canyon

Day 14 -- half-way through! And we haven't even hit the Pacific yet.

Today was spent seeing the sites of the south rim of the Grand Canyon. In the morning we went to the western part only accessible by shuttle bus, all the way to Hermit's Rest; then in the afternoon we went to the eastern part, all the way to Desert View, the part we drove through last night in the dark. (We found out that the fires we saw are part of a controlled burn, managing the forest with natural fire.)

What can I say? Just when you think you've seen everything, nothing could possibly top the last thing you saw, the West just goes and ups the ante. You think you've seen canyons and sculpted buttes and rock formations? Ha! Here's a canyon on top of a canyon on top of a canyon, it's a mile deep, and miles wide, and goes on forever!

The park itself, while nice and all that, sure suffers from poor planning and/or marking -- the maps suck, they aren't to scale, don't show the "secret" roads for the residents (and there is quite a huge residential setup for all the workers and stuff), and the signs contradict each other, aren't very helpful, or are just plain wrong. The road to the west that is shuttle bus only: we saw at least two signs claiming it is open to all vehicles. Last night finding our lodge was a nightmare. And as for poor planning: there is an area called Mather Point that has an associated visitor's center and book store with it. The visitor's center is not accessible by car, you have to take a shuttle bus or walk. Meanwhile, Mather Point itself is very popular and has way too many cars to be accommodated by the smallish parking lot there -- cars are parked off the side of the road and illegally and all. Why not put a larger parking lot by the visitor's center, and have people take a shuttle bus from there to Mather point? I mean, OK, the park is over a hundred years old, you inherit some of this stuff, but man! Just get used to the fact that nothing makes sense, the signs are confusing, and the maps suck, and you'll do fine.

We went back to our room to pack a picnic, and it took three tries, circling around, before we could find the picnic area indicated on the map. And of course the picnic area didn't have anything useful like a spigot for us to rinse plates with... We also did a little war-driving, trying to find an open wifi. I had reports that there was supposed to be a recreation center on Albright Ave. that had wifi, but nothing; we couldn't even find any recreation center although we drove up and down Albright (not that that was easy to find, given the crappy maps). In the evening we got a tip from someone else that there definitely was an open wifi by the park headquarters building, but when we tried there was nothing (maybe it shuts down after business hours). So no luck on that front. This stuff will all have to be posted later.

We watched the sunset over the canyon. We also did laundry tonight (such excitement!), and had dinner at the nearby cafeteria to the laundromat. Now we have to hang out the still not quite dry clothes all over the room and hope they dry tonight.

We are pretty exhausted, and still have almost no idea where we are going tomorrow. Oh well; for tonight we have a nice room. We'll figure tomorrow out.

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Previous Entries

Our Trip to Ireland
08/09/09

Google Map of our Trip
09/17/07

Road Trip: The End
09/15/07

Road Trip, Day 27
09/13/07

Road Trip, Day 26
09/12/07

Road Trip, Day 25
09/11/07

Road Trip, Day 24
09/10/07

Road Trip, Day 23
09/09/07

Road Trip, Day 22
09/08/07