New Horizons

Tags

arizona, best friend, canyon, cliff, edge of the world, grand canyon, morning, new horizons, relationships, roadtrip, sunrise

Walking up the hill to the Grand Canyon we slowly walked into the light and then faster to greet the morning and sun rising over the ridge at (South Rim?) Grand Canyon. It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

It wasn’t so much the achievement of seeing it as it was getting there though.

My whole life I would hear people talking about all the wonders of the world and of course the Grand Canyon was brought up almost every single time. Yet I’d never been and wasn’t sure if I ever would. So many years ago I put it on my bucket list expecting it to be the most extraordinary experience ever.

As much as people talked about it people also would sometimes down play the experience of seeing it. They would say you see it, look for a few minutes and go. But I knew that even if that was the case at least they saw it and got to experience it for themselves. I never could take someone’s word for it and would have to see for myself.

As a child I thought this was merely rebellious, as an adult I know it is wise. Everyone has a different reaction to an experience and to take someone’s negative review on it and never experience it for yourself is cheating yourself.

So many people I knew growing up talked negatively about traveling and they always spoke as if it were nothing special and they could go without it or they merely disliked it altogether. I have fell in love with traveling after experiencing it a bit later in life than some others might have but it’s now something I love and try to do as often as I can.

Once we arrived my best friend and I spent far more than a few minutes there, in fact I believe it was at least a couple hours. Once we saw the sun rising over the horizon we stood together in awe then quickly hustled ourselves to the rim and began taking pictures. We did this for some time, moving from one location to the next until we found ourselves on a short hike to a piece that hung out from the rest. There we of course took even more pictures.

I can’t speak for others or how they would view it but it was an amazing experience for my friend and I. We sat at the edge of the Grand Canyon marveling at it’s unbelievable size. Even in person it was almost impossible to believe our eyes and comprehen how large it is.

We talked for a long time about how we were only 9 hours away from such a marvel and have never gone before then. It amazed us how it felt like such an untouchable dream, something so out of reach, something that seemed like it should take an insurmountable effort to achieve. And yet here we were. An easy and beautiful roadtrip to the location that possibly was at the top of my bucket for many years.

We spoke of how this trip was symbolic of how we can go through life feeling like things are so hard or impossible to obtain but if you merely take the leap then you may find yourself there a lot more easily than you may think.

We left the canyon around 7:30am feeling like it was already getting too warm to stay, the sunlight washing out some of the morning color already. We were on our way to Texas and there were many miles to go but now we knew getting there would be easier and quicker than we would think.