Grand Canyon

Whether I've been in Utah or Arizona I've always lived about 4 hours away from the Grand Canyon and have never been.  Well, I finally went and it was worth it.  I could have never imagined that thing being so big.  I mean I knew it was big...but this was really big.  We only spent about 45 minutes at the Grand Canyon but that's all you need if you're just looking over the view.  I now want to plan a trip to go down into the canyon.  I think that's when it gets really fun.  The real purpose of our trip was to stalk some elk...and that we did.  :)  Details below.

The first night Matt and I sat at a water hole just to see what kind of Elk are in the area. (matt's bull elk tag is up north, that's why we're here).  Well, if any of you are like me, you've never sat a water hole.  Well, overall it's pretty boring.  However, there was one exciting minute.  We were sitting as still as we could sit when I heard some crunching noise. I had to be on the look out because if you notice from the picture above my husband fell asleep.  So I hit Matt and he whispers, "don't move."  So, I don't.  I sit there like a stone.  Listening to this Elk that is directly behind me, like 5-7 yards behind me.   Matt could see it out of the corner of his eye but I couldn't. So I just sit there and listen to him breath and then take a step closer.  My heart was pounding.  I thought for sure the thing was going to charge us or something. He finally smelled us and ran away.  I was so disappointed because by the time I got to see it, it was running away and I didn't get a good picture.  We were in the wrong spot. Anyway, that was the thrilling minute.  However, like a gambler that was enough to get me hooked.  My one little win.  I now want to go back.  Oh, P.S. Matt didn't really fall asleep! :)

Finally, some Grand Canyon pics.   This is Matt and I overlooking the canyon. It was kind of a hazy day so it wasn't the ideal picture taking conditions.  But it was still cool.  

This is a picture we took through the binoculars because if you notice in the bottom left corner is the Colorado river.  Of course the picture doesn't do it justice but it was awesome to watch through the binoculars.  
This may look like I'm standing on flat ground but I just hiked to the top of this "mountain"  It wasn't a Utah mountain but it was a good little hike.  It took us about 45 minutes of steady hiking to reach the top. This is really neat because once you're on top you can look out from every direction. I did get sunburned going up but then we got to the top and 15 minutes later the wind and the rain came and we hiked down during a down pour. We were soaked...but it was really fun and probably the highlight of the trip.  It's always nice to get out of this melting heat and into cooler temperatures.