Day 6 Continued: Fires and The Grand Canyon

 Another fun Route 66 classic that we saw was the Wigwam Hotel. It looked pretty incredible with a line of old classic cars lined up next to each "room". We wished we could stay there, but that particular one looked very closed and the other was too far away.

As we got closer to Flagstaff Arizona, we saw this huge mound of white smoke rising up in the distance. Shouts of White Smoke Monster! filled the car, but we weren't joking anymore when we drove through it and saw the smoke was actually a sickly shade of brown. We found out via a fast food joint in Flagstaff that it was actually a forest fire. Because it was so close to Flagstaff, a town we had planned on coming back to after the Grand Canyon, we decided then that maybe we should stay closer to the canyon instead. A quick google search tells me that today, 10 days after the fire began, it has just been classified as fully contained.

I thought that driving to the Grand Canyon would be full of more flatness and a desert with a sudden stop at the canyon. For some reason I pictured just lines of people looking out into it with nothing to block their view. Boy was I wrong. We drove through forests of trees, saw mountains in the near distance, observed cows and farms and finally arrived at a tree covered bit of land and had no idea where to go to see the canyon itself.

 After a brief bout of confusion we obtained advice from a nice gentleman in the bookstore and got back in the car - taking the Desert Drive. We stopped at a several points and took photos, but eventually ended up at the Grand View. Stunned we stood there looking into the abyss just enjoying the view. Beautiful dips and curves below a flat horizon line full of gorgeous blues and purples and reds.

We took a ton of photos, but this is really something you need to see for yourself to fully appreciate. I never realized just how big and how incredible this sight would be. As it got darker we sat on the rocks and enjoyed a glorious, peaceful sunset over the Grand Canyon. I'll just leave you with that for now.