The always Majestic Grand Canyon

From a KOA in Flagstaff, we called ahead to the Canyon camp grounds for reservations. Seems the RV Village in the park is booked from March through most of November at least a year in advance. We drove to the Canyon and found a circa 1970s Flintstone theme campground for dirt cheap about 25 miles from the canyon. It was run down, but there were some campers there so I paid for two nights since we would only be sleeping there. The next morning we went to the canyon and on the way passed a better but not great campground at twice the price of Flintstones. It got down to around freezing each night and as we arrived at the canyon, the temperature was only up to 40 degrees. We walked around some and then ate an early lunch and as we were sitting down, we noticed it snowing outside. Within a few minutes it was like a blizzard with heavy snow blowing almost parallel to the ground. By 1 PM it was clearing up some. It is not possible to drive to the canyon overlooks anymore, unless you have a special handicap pass which requires that one be totally unable to board a bus in any way. I only saw two cars doing this the entire time, and they were assisted elderly folks. The large buses rotate on a 15 minute basis, and one can get off whenever one wants and then catch the first bus by when one is ready to move on. There is also a rim trail one can hike or bike. David and I hiked between some of the shorter legs, and caught the bus for the ones over a half mile. David and I discussed the trail down into the canyon, but neither of us was confident that we could make it back up if we tried to walk down, and I doubt you can catch a mule down there for the ride up only. By mid afternoon, the sun was shining bright and we got some pretty good photos. There is always a haze in the canyon these days due to smog from Mexico and California. I used a UV haze filter which did not get rid of it totally, so I used Picasa to edit the photos some and eliminated most of the haze up close, but was unable to remove it from the longer distances. The Grand Canyon averages 10 miles across, and at one point you can see a landmark 35 miles down the canyon and it does not appear to be that far, however how many times can you see a measured distance of 35 miles? We hoped to get some great sunset photos but clouds started coming in and the shots were limited.
Now we head to Las Vegas to meet up with a cousin of mine who lives there and see the strip and any place else cousin Jim and his wife Alice have time to show us. We will cross the Hoover Dam and may try to take a tour if they have any.