Everything Except The Grand Canyon

As our trip began to wind down, my aunt and I traveled from Sedona to our final destination: The Grand Canyon. I was expecting it to be nothing; I had seen so many photos, how exciting could it be?

Answer: magnificent. I won't even try to deny the fact that my mouth was gaping open wide for a couple minutes. The Grand Canyon is yet another wonder which people try to photograph yet continuously fail to capture the true essence of its being.

I tried too! 

The funny thing is that I enjoyed Grand Canyon National Park to the extreme, but it was for unusual reasons. It wasn't the canyon; it was the culture.

Even within the first few minutes at the initial overlook, I heard so many different languages I lost count. People come from literally everywhere on the planet to see the Grand Canyon, and that intercultural presence makes the park even more worth it. I talked to people from several different states, as well as people "touring" (as they call it) from Australia and England. The person who rang me up in the gift shop was from the Philippines, and the person refilling waters at dinner was from Peru. 

I always thought it would be awesome to work at an airport kiosk because each day would involve meeting so many different people with so many different stories going so many different places for so many different reasons. Turns out, many National Parks are similar in that way.

And the people were all friendly!! It had been a long time since I was in a place with such a large quantity of smiling, genuinely happy people.

I also loved the bus system. In Michigan, the closest bus stop is a 7 minute drive from my house, at which point it becomes useless to ride the bus; we're already almost to our destination. Perhaps that is why I found the bus system at the Grand Canyon so enthralling. It was free and stopped everywhere. there were buses that went from the hotels to the eating areas to the visitor centers, and other buses that hopped from one scenic overlook to another. It instilled a sense of freedom in me. We used our car a grand total of zero times between check-in and check-out. 

I am failing to communicate the thing I am trying to communicate. To sum it up, I will say that Grand Canyon National Park is amazing, and the amazingness spans far beyond the canyon walls. I would totally live there if I could.