This month I’ve been writing about beautiful outdoor destinations we’ve visited. I’ll end it with one of the closest, yet most spectacular, sights we’ve ever seen – the Grand Canyon.
I had a hard time both writing commentary for this post and choosing pictures to accompany it, for the simple reason that neither words nor pictures do it justice. Before we went, I had seen hundreds of photos of the Canyon. It looked beautiful, and I was looking forward to seeing it.
But nothing prepared me for the spiritual nature of this visit. If you’ve been there, you probably know what I mean, and if you haven’t, you’ll just have to go yourself. The depth of the gorge, the reach of the canyon to the horizon and beyond, the striking and ever-changing colours – and still it adds up to much more than the sum of all these parts.
We were thrilled to visit the Canyon with our daughters when they were 10 and 7, and I wouldn’t have changed that for the world. We listened to a ranger talk about the history and geology of the area, we hiked into the gorge twice, and we watched the sun both set and rise over the canyon. But if I ever get back, I’ll set aside the time just to sit, and to watch, and to take it all in.
