the grand canyon, west rim

Wow. We flew over here, on our 40^th wedding anniversary. It’s totaly awesome. I was surprised at how many light planes and helicopters were out there. The colours of the rocks change, depending on the time of day. A sight that will live with me forever.

Oh wow! Wow! Oh! Wow! These are all the sounds I could get out of my mouth when we reached the Grand Canyon. We were on the wester side, Arizona.
After sometime of gazing and breathing sounds like ohhhh!, I managed to say, ‘Imagine the settlers coming across this!’.
I mean, can you picture yourself in a wagon or on horse back and reaching this, this vast, seemingly bottomless ‘hole’ in the ground, which reflects myriad of colours as the sunlight hits the rock walls?
There are no photographs that do the canyon justice. It is majestic, magnicent, awesome, incredible, breath stealing, beautiful, magical, wonderful, wondrous, huge, gigantic, unbelievable. These words seem so useless. Purples, blues, reds, oranges, greens, greys — all these colours in every hue are displayed in the canyon at some point in the day.
I was there in April so there was still snow lying on crags below the rim. There were still a few icicles just visible. This simply added a dimension — that seasons are longer or shorter inside the canyon due to the sheer depth of it. And in places, you can just make out the Colorado River, which carved this Temple in the ground, this Cathedral of nature, this glimpse of God.
When, or if, you get over just being there, you become aware that there is a lot of wild life; this is a National Park. There are deer, chipmunks, skunks, raccoons, and birds. You can see birds flying below you in the Canyon. You can just make out their nests. Indeed, chipmunks live below the rim as there are trees that grow, clinging to the sides of the rock walls. In fact the cCanyon has a habitat and ecosystem of its own, indeed, several depending on how far north or south, east or west you are. It is like a world within a canyon. Well, it is.
I had seen the Grand Canyon from arplanes, almost everyone of us has seen photographs. The reality is something else. And something stays with you once you have been there. Thisis certainly true for me. A humbling, a celebration of life, a sense of wonder, a je né sais quois.
I imagined for ages after being there becoming a park ranger.
(Well, I like gardening!) Just so that I could see those views everyday. But in all honesty, they will last me a life time and if I get to go again, I must have a truly blessed life.