My wife and I just returned from a delightful trip to Grand Canyon, together with my niece, Marjorie. The weather was perfect. I got to take photographs at two sunsets and two sunrises – and many times in between, a total of about 300 pictures.
On my Sunset walk on the second night I met a couple looking down to the trees in Indian Gardens thousands of feet below us. I asked him if he had ever been there. Oh yes he had, but that was many years ago. So began a delightful conversation as we walked together back to the Village. I found that their names were Michael and Natalie, that they lived in Ohio and Florida, and that Natalie was a painter, going by the painting name of Vera. I love these chance encounters with such wonderful people.
We had a very different encounter the next morning as we drove eastward along the rim toward Desert View. As soon as we parked the car at Grandview Point my niece spotted a young man picking up a small child probably less than a year old, with an older child near by. She said something to the effect that he must have found the child in the woods, and if so he found a good one. The boy in question, now in his father’s arms, smiled broadly and waved a friendly greeting. The older boy, not wanting to be upstaged by his younger brother, looked down at the Colorado river, 4000 feet below us. He then remembered his super powers, looked up at us and announced, “I just jumped up from there.” We were all dutifully impressed and congratulated him on his prodigious feat.