The Grand Canyon National Park, AZ

It was a long drive from Vegas to the GCNP (the South Rim), but worth every minute of the journey. We did hit a thunderstorm as we got to William, which stayed with us right into the park. We stopped in Williams from where they run a train in to the Park, pulled by a steam engine. Surprised how far down south the colours of Fall are.

The clouds, the sky and the winding road through the desert scenery is always fascinating splattered with a few tiny towns. General stores selling everything under the sun. Then as we parked and walked to the rim of the Canyon, the thunderstorm suddenly cleared and behold the valley was bathed in the golden rays of the setting sun. Clouds lit up in so many colours

There are several lodges inside the park – we chose the Maswick lodge, but did the rounds of other lodges run by the park system – Couple of them are right at the rim edge. Lost of stuff to do in the park. They run a series of buses, that you can hop-on and off an all key observation points. After dinner, decided to shoot the stars once it got quite dark. Surprisingly there were so many folks hiking down the valley in the moonlight carrying torches and their phones as flash lights.

Of course as a photographer, I always wake up a couple of hours before dawn to catch the sunrise and the morning light. And this would be no exception, except that my wife, who likes to stay in bed till the sun is well up, wanted to come. Natural once the Canyon bug hits you. In the dark of course we felt our way to the rim and as the sky began to glow pink, found that there were thousands of others with the same idea. Wonderful how the morning light picks up peaks in the Canyon one after the other.

 Its incredible that the Canyon and skies change every hour depending on the weather and position of the sun. One day I will get through the 1000’s of photographs that I have taken

The wildlife in the park looks so tame. They walk along the same trails as the visitors. The elk and deer are so tame and is not bothered by people or vehicles

Driving along the park, stopping to shoot pictures and talk to people took up most of the moring

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