In awe of the beauty of the Grand Canyon

For many years, I dreamed of visiting the Grand Canyon because it is on eof the 7 wonders of the world. At 15, studying world geography I, could not get enough of the wonders of the world and the land reclamation process in the Netherlands. And so I wrote me a small list of places I wanted to visited when I grew older and had the means to do so: my list turned out to have 21 places exactly.

1. THE GRAND CANYON - Arizona (USA), 2. THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA - China, 3. THE TAJ MAHAL - India, 4. THE HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON, - Israel, 5. THE PYRAMIDS IN GIZA, 6. STATUTE OF ZEUS IN OLYMPIA - Greece, 7. THE TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS - Greece, 8. THE LEANING TOWER OF PIZA - Italy, 9. THE COLOSEUM - Italy, 10. THE LIGHTHOUSE OF ALEXANDRIA, 11.

By the time I, wrote this list, I had not taken the time to find out that some of my dream wonders to see were no longer in existence like the "Hanging Gardens of Babylon", "The temple of Artemis", The Lighthouse of Alexandria" and "The Statute of Zeus in Olympia". So I, studies some more and got the first job I could get hired at right out of school. I was eager to leave home and save money to make my way out in life. So the years came and went by, bringing good fortune with each passing one.

In 2004 I relocated to the United States to get married and guess where my future husband lived? yesssssssss, in Arizona - the Grand Canyon state, lol! Having seen quite a few places on my list, I could not wait to visit the Grand Canyon - I did at the first opportunity which was in April of 2006. I could not believe the beauty of the view. The number of tourists there I could not count, the buses and private cars could hardly find parking space. I learned that the Grand Canyon averages 4.7 million visitors annually. Over 3 million will visit the South Rim Nearly 750,000 will enjoy the North Rim. And 500,000 will visit the newly discovered West Rim.

My daughter and I, took a bus tour from Las Vegas where we had been visiting with family friends. The bus drive lasted almost 5 hours with lunch stop along the way. We arrived at the Imex Theatre first where we were shown a video on the history of the Grand Canyon and it's earlier inhabitants (I highly recommend going to the Imex Theatre before arriving at the Canyon). We had also paid for lunch, so we had lunch at the theatre before proceeding to the Grand Canyon National Park. You know you are approaching the park when you start to see the trees, pines and animals lol, we managed to see a few. I remember that it had snowed the night before so the snow was melting away and it was a lilttle chilly outside.