Bearizona & the GRAND CANYON!!

Grab a glass of tea and get comfy 'cause this could be a lengthy post.

We went to Sedona, AZ for my birthday(see previous post) and took a day trip to the Grand Canyon, with a stop at Bearizona on the way.  Bearizona is like Jurassic Park without the dinosaurs.  :)  You drive through the first section in your own car with a GPS-driven verbal guide through the various "pens" that animals were in.  The second area is more of a zoo-type set up in which you walk through to see all the animals.  There was some construction occurring so it seemed like it was a fairly new attraction.  I'd be interested in going back in a few years to see how it's developed.

All the animals we viewed from our drive - we often had to wait for the animals to cross the road...yes, if you rolled down your window, you could reach out and touch them if you wanted.

White Buffalo

When we got to the bear section, we were reminded and instructed to keep our windows rolled up and if a bear approaches our vehicle, that we are to drive slowly away.

As you can see by the glare in the picture below, we abided by the "leave your windows up" rule.  This one cracks me up - a bear...just chill-axin in the shade!

Then we got to the walking area where we watched these little bear cubs for about 20 minutes.  They were so funny to watch, playful, and so cute!

Then we got to the "petting zoo" area.

He looked like he need a scratch behind the ear.  :)

After Bearizona, we ventured to the south rim of the Grand Canyon.  I'm not exactly sure what I expected but...whoa...completely amazed!  The pictures don't really do it justice.  They have it set up so nice so you just park and then a shuttle takes you to all the overlooks and hiking trails.

You can see the Colorado River way down in the canyon...

We took the South Kaibab Trail and our intention was to go 3 miles down and then the same 3 miles back up.  However, they had these groups of kids going about 1.5'ish miles down and back and I witnessed too many of them crying their eyes out so it totally psyched me out.  I told Mike that we should probably turnaround at the 1.5 mile mark, making it a 3 mile hike.  Afterward, I completely wished we would have gone further ~ I definitely could have made it!  It's hard to judge because going down is the easy part...it's hard to imagine how tough the return back to the top may be.

Mike at Ooh Aah Point.

Resting and getting a snack at our turnaround spot.

Quite breath-taking!

I would definitely go back to the Grand Canyon and spend more time there.  I think it deserves an entire vacation of it's own.  We could check out more trails, maybe hike to the bottom, camp, and then hike back up the next day??  Maybe hike down and raft out?  I can't tell you how many signs said, "No Day Hikes to the River!!"...so I will certainly abide by all the rules and ensure we're planned and prepared.

If you've never been, please make sure you put it on your bucket list!!

P.S. Yep, I've been blogging a lot lately ~ I was a little behind but, more importantly, we got a new laptop that actually doesn't make me want to throw it out the window.  Thanks for reading and allowing me to do a little catch-up on my "scrapbooking."