Welcome to Grand Canyon memories!

We booked one night at the Maswick Lodge, inside Grand Canyon Village. Our room was only 1/4 mile from the rim, so it was easy to walk over and begin our journey through the eons.

We were glad we got a hotel inside the park. Once you are staying inside Grand Canyon Village, you don't have to worry about finding a daily parking space. Seems like ALL the hotels inside Grand Canyon Village are within walking distance of the rim. There are free bus shuttles until about ten PM.

Not many choices here, especially if you want a "nice" meal. We did want a nice meal and made reservations months in advance at the dinning room at El Tovar hotel. The hotel was impressive, historic and felt homey. The meal was relatively expensive, but worth the price of admission. Since we were there for only one day, we didn't try any other food choices in the Village. We did have lunch the next day in Tusayan, but it seems there is mostly "tourist" food. Nothing to complain about, since the Canyon is the real focus.

You've probably heard about "hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon".  Of course, no one should do that without lots of training and the right equipment (read: water and food). Our guide suggested to pick an amount of hiking time and spend less time walking down the trail, and MORE time for your return. The trail is "fairly" wide, but a lot of people kept very close to the inside of the trail wall. We did walk down the Bright Angel Trail for about five minutes. It's not very steep (there are LOTS of switch backs), but the total distance down to the Colorado River (AND back up) is about ten miles! Otherwise, if you stay on the Rim,  there is a relatively flat path that is said to run many miles in either direction.

We would plan to stay three nights in the Grand Canyon Village, so we could have two full days of hiking - one day down the Bright Angel Trail, and one day along the rim path. This would also give us time for nice lunches and hopefully a massage. There are also quite a few lectures by park rangers on subjects like geology, fossils, native Indians, and the history of development in the Grand Canyon. And, DON'T feed the animals! PS We will save our allowance at stay at El Tovar. It seems like it's worth the extra tariff. 

This was an interesting trip, especially seeing snow in May. Remember, please left-click on the photos to see any captions and also start a slide show.