Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

When in northern Arizona, it’s hard to justify skipping the Grand Canyon, so even though Jacob and I had both visited before, we figured we better cross it off the list for the kids, and the dog too. The north rim of the canyon is still closed, and much too far of a drive, so we spent our time on the south rim. We entered the park on the east side and made our way across stopping off at some spectacular viewpoints. Unfortunately, they had recently had some snow, so we couldn’t hike into the canyon – muddy and icy winding paths into a canyon doesn’t really appeal to me.

We have finally gotten the hang of this national park business, well as much as we can, since they all seem to have completely different levels of service, and have started packing picnic lunches always. We snagged a great spot for a snack, enjoyed our lunch and view and kept heading towards the rim trail.

After our lunch we finally reached the south rim trail. We wandered along for a while, to get the dog some exercise, and some distance between Jacob and I and the kids as they sang their own rendition of hickory dickory dock over and over again. Thankfully it was much warmer the further west we went into the park and the snow was completely gone along with the need for winter jackets.

We did learn on our exit out of the park, that it was really all for nothing. They have the option of Grand Canyon in iMax just outside the entrance to the park at the Pizza Hut. Turns out we were suckers for actually going outside to see the real thing – ‘Merica – it’s quite the place.