We didn't wake up dead, so we made a speedy exit
in the morning and went to a gas station to fill up and buy an atlas. The guy
behind the desk was really helpful and told us about the Grand Canyon National
Park over on the south side of the Canyon, but it was a good 3 hours drive
away. The reason that other place was so expensive was because it was privately
owned by Native Americans and they can basically charge what they like. So we
set off hoping for more of a successful day. We stopped off in Williams at an
information site and bought a ticket for the Canyon, $25 per car! Much better.
The rangers in the centre agreed that the Sky Walk was a complete rip off and
they said that the national park is in the best area anyway. It was another 60
miles to the Grand Canyon Visitors Centre so we set off feeling pleased that we
refused to pay so much. We were definitely rewarded when we got there, there
was actually a tarmac road right up to the canyon! A five minute walk behind the
visitors centre and we were on the edge of the canyon, and it takes your breath
away how massive it is, you can't really explain in words but from the point we
were stood it was ten miles to the other side and over a mile to the Colorado
river below. We had a walk around for a while and ventured as close to the edge
as we dared before taking the Desert View road east along the rim of the Canyon
towards Cameron. We stopped off at several view points along the way, at one of
them we even saw a couple of Condors gliding past us. We had been saying how
cool it would be to see a thunder storm over the Grand Canyon, and after seeing
at least one every day we'd been in America, we saw the signature huge black
cloud over the opposite rim. We had about ten minutes to watch the lighting
storm before we had to run for cover from the penny sized rain drops. By the
time we got to Cameron it was getting on and the motel we had planned to stay
in was full apart from a $200 suite! Luckily we found another one not to far
away.