Grand Canyon

I was exhausted after our trip yesterday - we left the hotel at 8am and got back about 12 hours later.  We had an amazing time though - I highly recommend the Detours AZ company if anyone is looking to do a tour!  We had only 5 people on the tour - the buses can take up to 10 - so it was a friendly, relaxed trip with a very knowledgeable guide.

I'll try to be a bit restrained with photos and not show the 100-odd photos I took :)

Our first major stop was at Sedona - a little town surrounded by amazing red-rock formations.  We had about 30 mins to stop, have a look around and visit the shops.

After we left Sedona, we drove through the Oak Creek Canyon.  My thoughts of Arizona were the 'wild west' landscape - desert and cactus - so it was a huge surprise to go through a canyon and up a mountain covered in pine trees - and snow!!

After some more driving, we finally came to the Grand Canyon.  Wow!  I'd seen it before from a different viewpoint but I think the side we saw it from this time was much better.  Plus there were very few people there - it was like we had the whole place to ourselves.  We stopped at about 6 places around the South Rim for photos (all very relaxed and not rushed at all) - we had lunch at the first stop looking out over the canyon.  Awe-inspiring!

Hurry up Mum, it's cold standing here!

And to top it all off - there was snow at the Canyon too.  This was Billy's first experience with snow, so he was just as excited about the snow as the Grand Canyon.  In fact, probably more so - he is 8 after all :)

Its a place that really stretches the mind.  Its so huge that its hard to get any perspective on how big it actually is. 

Speaking of stretching the mind - we spent today getting to LA and settling in at our hotel in Anaheim :)  Yes, Disneyland is coming up very soon!!  We'll spend tomorrow sleeping in and working out what we want to do around here - we're here for the next 10 days so we can afford to take some time to rest up!