Left Grand Canyon Railroad Hotel and to a train to the Grand Canyon. It is an hour and a half trip. We had the luxury car set up like a parlor car with an open air platform we could go on since we were the last car on the train. Really nice views and met some cool people who live in Australia.
We arrived at the Grand Canyon train station and went aboard a tour bus (this was part of the package deal that DD set up at AAA). This is where we had our first look at the canyon.
What an amazing sight. It is so vast that it almost looks like it is a giant mural. It is very difficult to judge distances much like the experience I had at Meteor Crater.
The tour bus made 2 stops at 2 different vista points that we could walk around. Took some pictures. This was followed by a buffet lunch which was part of the tour package.
We then had to wait for our room to be ready so DD and I each bought a Grand Canyon T-shirt. We then went to our room to take a nap.
Got up to see if we could go to one of the vista points and see the sunset. But when we woke up from our nap, it was raining, windy and lightning.
Lightning tends to hit the rim of the canyon so the park stopped shuttling people to other parts of the rim. Well that ended our sunset watch. The clouds never let the sun through before sunset. So we had a drink and an appetizer (some kind of chips covered with beans, salsa and some other stuff) with a view of the canyon. On our way back to the hotel we saw a large elk eating grass in front of another hotel near the rim. He seemed to have done this before since he was not even startled with people taking flash pictures of it.
We arrived at our hotel and had a little to eat and on our way back to the room I noticed start in the sky. Now it becomes clear. It would have been nice if it had cleared up a few hours earlier. O well. More chances to look at the canyon tomorrow.