WALNUT CANYON NM to GRAND CANYON NP

WALNUT CANYON NM to GRAND CANYON NP

28 Apr
After a complete electric check of the RV, luckily for us only the chassis battier was bad and need replaced. Almost 23 hours later we packed our storage unit (aka tow car) and were ready to get back on the road to our next stop Grand Canyon NP.

After exiting I-40 there is still about an hour drive straight ahead until you reach the gates to the National Park. About half way in we made a pit stop at the small tourist area to take a look around. There were old cars and motorcycles sitting out front and the petrified wood store gave out fee pieces off petrified wood.

I hate to give sad news, but this was the first time when were somewhere that a fatal accident occurred. When we arrived there was rescue crew on the Mather Point lookout walkways. A person fell over the rails and they were working to find her body. A woman, 45 from Flagstaff, AZ fell 400 feet to the canyon bottom and was pronounced dead.

The park rangers keep people away, and told us everything was ok. I only found out that someone died when the wife saw it in someone else's blog. I did a quick search and found this article on the Grand Canyon National Park website.

http://www.nps.gov/grca/parknews/fatality-victim-at-grand-canyon-national-park-identified.htm

GRAND CANYON NP

http://www.nps.gov/grca/index.htm

One of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. Entrance fee $25 per vehicle. There are four gates to enter and they were long. It seamed that no one had a National Park Pass and time just stood still, until we were next. We drove up, showed our pass and the ranger waved us on. Just like that, done in a few seconds. With that many gates they should have one of the gates for pass holders. We arrived at the visitors center and looked for RV parking and we have never saw so many rental RV's in one place. It looked like a RV rental parking lot. After a look around the visitor center, park store and getting my stamp in my National Park Passport Book, we were off to see the first holes in the ground of The Grand Canyon.

One of the good features of The Grand Canyon is the park has free shuttle buses that drive around the park, and they are on 15 minutes cycles. There are three different loops, we followed the visitor guide map and we got to see a lot of the canyon in just a few hours. Not a lot of parking for RV's outside the visitor center. We took the bus to some more holes to see and the sunset in the Canyon.We also saw elks eating grass in the parking lot.

                                 

There are two campground in the park, unfortunately they were both full when we arrived. Sorry, I did not get the price per night. Since we were over in the camping areas we did empty our tanks before leaving the park. 

After seeing the sun set we were back on the road and found a place to stop for the night at a TA truck stop.