The Grand Canyon, North and South Rims

We arrived at the Jacob Lake Campground to drive the next day to the north rim of the Grand Canyon.  According to Wikipedia, the north rim gets only about 10% of the visitors to the Grand Canyon.  Well, yeah, it's difficult to get to it!

There is a wonderful old, old lodge and cabins perched on the rim.  If I were coming here, I would try to get reservations for one of the cabins.  

The next day we drove around to the south rim, a location I had been quietly dreading given the unmanageable crowds were had encountered at Yellowstone.  What a delight that the south rim wasn't overrun and the Park Service has done an outstanding job managing its visitors.  

We had lunch at the famous El Tovar Lodge which overlooks the south rim of the canyon.  Usually in a place like this, the view is wonderful and the food stinks.  Not so here (just like the Banff Springs Hotel).  Food was great.

The south rim of the park has instituted a system of parking lots and shuttle buses which dramatically cuts down on the traffic and congestion.  The shuttle buses are all free and you can board and get off anywhere along the routes.  Brilliant. And there is one shuttle which takes you into the nearest town which is where we were staying.  Nice to finish the main National Parks with a good experience.

In the next post, you can look forward to Petrified Forest National Park and Painted Desert and an explanation of why it's been SO LONG since I caught you up on the travels.  Stay tuned.