Day 7: You can't drive your house, but you can sleep in your car

The drive to the Grand Canyon wasn't very notable, although the winds we experienced in Arizona were pretty ridiculous. When we stopped for gas just outside of the Grand Canyon park the wind was blowing so hard that it required quite a bit of force just to open the door of the car to get out.

At the Grand Canyon, the wind didn't let up much. We were told that winds can reach 40mph on the rim of the canyon, and I believe it. Aside from the constant breeze, the temperature was much cooler on the canyon than it was on our previous drives. It actually necessitated a change to jeans and a jacket from the shorts and short sleeves that I had been wearing up until then.

Bundling up in the Grand Canyon

After fighting our way through a bit of traffic to get a parking spot at the visitor center we made our way to Mather's Point, which is the traditional first view of the canyon. The view was literally breathtaking, but that may have just been the gale force winds that ripped over the rim of the canyon to our little spit of rock that jutted out into the abyss. It's hard to describe the immense size of the canyon, but it feels like you could drop a mountain in the bottom and it would still be dwarfed by the rift that enveloped it.

Mather's Point

The view is just as good upside down

Next we made our way to Yavapai Point which affords a great East-West view perfect for watching the sunset. We were able to get right up to the edge where we bundled up and waited for the sun to go down. Our shadows steadily grew longer, and eventually the sky was awash with a vivid orange for a short while before the sun sunk below the horizon formed by the rim of the canyon.

Geries on Yavapai Point at sunset

Once the sun had set, we went back outside the gate of the park to get some dinner before heading back in to do some night photography. Since we were unable to find any legitimate camping areas, we ended up camping out in the car. Originally we planned to move everything from the trunk and back seat to the front seats so we could fold down the back seats and sleep in the trunk, but laziness got the better of us and we ended up just sleeping in the front seats. We took a nap and woke up again once the moon had gone down, then made our way back out to Mather's Point.

The night sky from Mather's Point

With the disappearance of the sun came even more frigid temperatures-- not to mention that the wind was blowing with renewed zeal. Even so we went out in the pitch black to Mather's Point, and took in the incredible starscape, where hundreds of thousands of stars dotted the inky black sky, and the translucent white streak of the Milky Way was clearly visible even to the naked eye.

We went back to sleep not long after, and woke with the rising sun streaming through the windows of the car. Even though we woke up pretty early, we felt surprisingly well rested, so we got an early start on our journey to Las Vegas.