Winnebago Voyage: Grand Canyon...day one

We had to hang around for a bit in Flagstaff, since our drive to the Grand Canyon was just two or three hours, and check-in time is noon. We drove up highway 89 which is east of the canyon since that entrance is much less crowded. The scenery was amazing with mountains on one side and the canyons of the Little Colorado River on the other side.

As soon as we got into the park, we stopped at the Watchtower, which has one of the more spectacular views of the canyon, and they have room for RV's to park. We immediately smelled some smoke and noticed that the view across the canyon was hazy. I looked it up, and there are some forest fires on the north rim. Interestingly, when we went to the visitor center, they had a "short" before the introductory film that told how much fire is needed to keep the forest healthy! I've been hearing this a lot lately, beginning with the forester I have for the land I inherited from my dad!

We got to the campground (the only one here with hookups) and there was a female elk standing beside our site, just munching on the leaves! Pat & Kirk had told us they saw them in the campground when they were here last year. We are happy that they assigned us a site with a shade tree on one side since it's still very hot.

After lunch, we rode around in the car into Grand Canyon Village, which is a real town and not just a tourist trap. Parking was hard so we had to walk a distance, but we roamed around on the edge of the canyon and went into the El Tovar Hotel, the Hopi House which has lots of beautiful Native American crafts, and then to the Verkamp's Visitor Center which gives a lot of history of the area and the early attempts at tourism.

We stopped by the small grocery store, which surprisingly has prices that are not bad!

I will have to drive around to get enough signal to get this posted!