Day 12, the spectacle of Grand Canyon continues

 Somehow we made it through the night, though we didn’t sleep all that well. In the morning, I took a punt with the hot water available at the site (needing me to keep holding a handle to keep water coming) and took a hot shower and the body slowly started to warm up after the shower and the sunlight which was starting to pick up.



We grabbed a quick breakfast at Starbucks at Tusayan Village and headed into the Grand Canyon. The idea was to go to the western points covering the southern rim. You can’t drive there but the national park authorities run a free shuttle from the Grand Canyon village into that side of the rim. 



While we had already been to the Grand Canyon the previous evening, seeing the Canyon again from newer points, such as Trail View Overlook, Hopi Point, Mojave Point, Pima Point and Hermit’s Rest, continued to be spellbingly fresh for us. As mentioned in yesterday’s notes, the Grand Canyon is massive and every new point you visit to see the Canyon presents you yet another new perspective on the natural wonder!



After spending our first half of the day there, we decided to head off northwards to see the Horseshoe bend. After stopping for a quick meal at Cameron, we headed off on I89 towards the horseshoe bend area. Along the way, we got to see the vast expanse of the Arizonanian desert, which is a riveting view. The painted desert is truly stunning! We stopped at a couple of places along the way to enjoy the views of the deserts before arriving at the Horseshoe bend.



After a short trek from the parking lot, we arrived at the bend and the view was spectacular!! We had seen pics of the bend and knew what to expect, nevertheless the view in life is breathtaking. We spent an hour or so seeing the bend and the surrounding areas from various points, including from a high placed rock right next to the viewing area.




After having our hearts full of the north end of this stretch, we headed south towards Flagstaff which was going to be our overnight halt. We found ourselves at a nice Indian restaurant to get some warm food before retiring to bed. 



One of the features of traveling in this area is that the time zone changes just around the longitude of Flagstaff, which means you could either lose or gain an hour depending on which direction you drive a 50 miles and it can get very confusing at times, because your phones need an active internet connection to update their times. While driving back to Flagstaff, we rushed to the restaurant thinking we are on Mountain time and we shall be too close to closing time, but turns out that Flagstaff is indeed on Pacific time giving us another hour to get through our meal.


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Food Tip: Paneer Korma, Delhi Palace, Flagstaff

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