Grand Canyon Trip in Memorial Day Weekend 2009

This was my first trip to Grand Canyon although I have been looking for this for more than a year now. I, Shusmita, Ahyan and Nitol took the US Airways from San Jose Airport 23rd May Saturday 9 AM and returned from there at 5 PM flight 25th May Monday. Ahmed Amin flew from San Francisco to join us in the Phoenix airport and he returned early in Monday morning.

The fun started at Phoenix airport while waiting for the rental car at Dollar Country. We were given a choice of either picking a PT Cruiser which I don't like or choosing a larger size Christler without any additional fee. We were delighted to get the bigger one and drove to a Mediterranean food center called Biaz market to finish lunch.

The drive from Phoenix to Flag Staff was scenic but windy and rainy. I drove a little bit and then gave the steering wheel to Nitol to go for a quick sleep as last few nights we didn't get time for proper sleep due to my neighbor Tufail Bhai's farewell from west coast to east coast. Amin took advantage of using his SLR camera to capture the scenic beauties of this drive just the way he did in the entire Grand Canyon trip.

We checked into Flag Staff Marriott late in the afternoon and ran for Sedona Park which is almost 35 miles from our hotel. So we were able to catch Sunset in Sedona park. The red rocks and the sun light reflection on those made the place an amazing dream spot to walk around. Amin and Nitol's cameras and Shusmita's iPhone were busy taking pictures after pictures. I was wondering if Sedona is so big and beautiful what are we going to see tomorrow in Grand Canyon?

We started very early in the morning at 6:30 AM for Grand Canyon Imax Theater which is just 2 miles before South Rim entrance. I liked the 34 minutes video and would ask you not to miss that as well. By the time we entered the South Rim and parked in Mather Point to have a look at where is The Grand Canyon, it was almost 10 in the morning. When we looked we were speechless. How big, deep and colorful are the great Grand Canyon. Amazing! I could only think of Niagara Falls to be as beautiful as this one although of different kind of its own.

The South Rim was 7000+ feet above sea level and the Colorado river that goes around the canyon is 2000 feet above sea level. The North Rim is 8000+ feet above sea level and typically you can't cover both the rims in a single trip. We parked our car and caught the blue, red and green line shuttle buses one by one to cover all the areas in South Rim and Grand Canyon Village where cars can't go but only buses.

Other than the youtube video in this post, you can also watch another small video here. To see the pictures of our Grand Canyon trip that Nitol uploaded in his Picasa Web Album, you may follow this screen.

http://picasaweb.google.com/nitol.shabbir/090523_MemorialWeekendGrandCanyonTrip#