Grand Canyon

October 29, 2010
Grand Canyon, Arizona

We left early this morning and entered the park through the East Rim entrance. Our first views of "The Grand" came from the Watchtower, the building designed by Mary Colter in the 1930s. It's under renovation now, but still in use. It offers some spectacular panoramas of Desert View.
If you have time, read the link about Mary Colter (it's Wikipedia, but the most comprehensive bio I could find).  She worked for the Fred Harvey Co and designed several buildings still in use.  And Fred Harvey?  He's the "Harvey House" Harvey.  And don't forget the "Harvey girls".   Also an interesting person.

We wandered the entire south rim, stopping at just about every lookout--we missed two, including the last one, Bright Angel, due to increased traffic and no parking. While it was great to go in by way of a lesser-used entrance, it did make the most popular viewing sites more crowded.

It was sunny and a bit cloudy, so I'm not sure the colors "popped" as much as if the sky had been totally blue, but beautiful just the same.

We saw a mountain chickadee, first for both of us, and a flock of western bluebirds, not firsts, but neat to see anyway. The Steller's jays here have white streaks, sort of like eyebrows, here. And the ravens here seem a bit glossier and with more green irridescence than those at Mt. Rainier.

The funniest animals we saw were Albert squirrels. They have tassels on their ears and white edging on their tails. They eat truffles found on the Ponderosa pine.

Hard to find images to include.  I still can't seem to fit more than 4 on a page, if I'm lucky---sometimes it eats a picture and I often don't have time to go back and re-do it.

So, Colleen, I know you were interested in the restroom pictures and Bob took one, but it didn't make the cut---sorry.  He also says to tell you there is a wonderful bathroom here at the campground, one of the best he's seen.  No pictures, though.