Return Trip May 11: Grand Canyon

I have been to the Grand Canyon a couple of times, once when I was about 10, and then another significant visit to the lower reaches of the canyon on the Colorado River (I loved that short but thoroughly mesmerizing boat ride). Jack has never had the pleasure of visiting the South Rim. We got there early, one of the first 30 cars in the parking lot at Grand Canyon Village, there were a 2 tour buses in the bus parking lot. It was cold and windy, very windy, the kind of wind that made me wish I was wearing thermal underwear. We shared the rim trail with an assortment of non-English speaking canyon marvelers. It is quite marvelous to be there, even Jack would stand staring out over the precipice. The canyon is 10 miles from rim to rim, a long distance, and looking down over the edge made me nauseous! It is so steep and so far to even the near bottom. The Colorado River is puny looking down there in the far bottom. The elevation at the South Rim is about 7200'. We walked and enjoyed and shivered at times for 3 hours then left to find a sheltered location to consume our picnic lunch. While we were eating it started snowing, just a little, then there was more, and more snow. Wow, better go see how this looks in the Canyon I thought, so ceased the grinding and headed back to the rim. The Canyon was invisible, snow was all there was to see. When we had left to picnic there were clouds and what looked like rain moving in from the west, but not rain, it was snow, a blizzard of it.
After that we left, went back to the parking lot which was filled with cars from many different states, two cars vied for the space we vacated. If it had not been so achingly cold I would have stayed to see if the snow would stop, and enjoy a new view of a snowy Grand Canyon, but I was chilled to the bone and the tourist population was growing too large for comfort.