What was Your First Big Vacation on Your Own (or w friends) and not...

[electric_blue68]

7. Wow, a school "Teen tour" to The West!!! ...

Googled up Canyon Lands...not sure I'd seen photos. I don't think so. Gorgeous.
Otoh, def seen plenty of photos of Arches!

Def seen pics of The Tetons! Didn't know about Jenny Lake. What a view!
What a fabulous set of sceneries you all experienced!
Glad it worked out so well. 👍

My GC trip started out quite disappointing, but got waaaay better later on.
Idk what 😑 I was thinking; thinking I could book an overnight at the hotel in GC from Flagstaff ?1day, maybe same day in advance in the summertime?! Uh, noooo.

I settled for a afternoon visit arriving from Flagstaff at noon, leaving at 4PM.

I'm all full of anticipation! Arrive, walk to near the Canyon's edge...
and whaaaa?!

Well...except for the pale yellow beige of the ground, and the toned down brick-red of the next set of rocks down ?10-?20+ feet down everything else was...
"blued out" in medium to lighter blues, pale nearly white blue, and purples, maybe some cool gray's.

It (the rest) looked "flat" almost like a diorama; a flat photo pretending to be 3-D behind glass!
l was seriously shocked! What happened to the glorious warm tones in photos I'd seen since I was ? 8-9 yrs old, now 17 years later at 27?!
Course, I walked around to the hotel, then leftward back to where we entered and kept going near the edge.

Finally, around 3PM the sun got down to an angle where all the warm colors emerged! 🥰
The pale yellows, ochers, more glowy yellowish-orange, oranges, rust-oranges, reddish-oranges; now contrasting with browner, and blue shadows!

There was our wonderous, and 3 dimensional looking Grand Canyon.

The colors, and sculpturalness of the high desert blow my mind w their beauty & wonderment! It was such a blessing that still glows inside me. Luckily while I lost a bunch - I still have some of my best slides!
🥰 📷 🥰