By now it was nearly 4:00 pm so after one more stop to take a picture of this pituresque farm house centered in a massive field, we vowed to not stop again until we got to the Grand Canyon. The drive from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon was beautiful- I would never have guessed Arizona looked this nice. We saw a number of Mule Deer next to the road as we drove through Kaibab forrest.
Mather Point also gave us a great view of our hiking goal for tomorrow... O'Neille Butte or at least Cedar Ridge (we will see if Sharon Woods hiking adequately prepped the non-workout members in our family).
We finally arrived at the Grand Canyon and headed towards the Yavapai lodge. Seeing a sign for Mather Point and fearing that we would get our first view of the Canyon from the car, I pulled over and we walked through the brush to the edge... the edge of the largest hole I've ever seen! The point we walked through to was part of the rim trail and did not have any guard rails. It was just dirt and then air- a lot of air. We inched up to within 5 feet or so of the rim and just gawked (between telling the kids to "stop right there- not an inch closer!"). There is just no way to describe that initial sense of vastness. I've seen hundreds of pictures and was still completely amazed by the size of it!
