Grand Canyon, Arizona

 
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As I drove closer to the Canyon, my heart began to sink as clouds of fog became thicker and thicker as I ascended. By the time I got to the entrance to the park, I could barely see ten feet in front of me. Even when I got to the edge of a lookout, I couldn’t see much of anything over the precipice.

I decided to keep on driving through the park in hopes that the clouds would clear. I pulled into one viewing area and parked, seeing just more fog over the cliff after I peeked over the edge. But as suddenly the clouds began to thin, I could see a brilliant turquoise ribbon so far in the distance and so far beneath me that it was hard to believe.

Unable to form any thoughts, I just decided to draw.

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As I drew, more and more of the fog lifted, revealing farther and father, immense layers of geologic time, carved by the Colorado River, so frail a trickle to have scarred such an immense valley into mountains. Patterns of stone felt woven into the canyon walls, as if by centuries of awe and contemplation from a patchwork of people unable to comprehend its scale.

 
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Farther along the Canyon rim, I found a spot to watch the sunset. I saw the last embers of the sun unite the millennia of stone with a single shadow, until the only light came from the millions of stars and the Milky Way above.

 
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The next day, I went out to hike into the Canyon. The way down was easy.

 
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I descended through millions of years of carved stone in a few miles of jaunty steps, finally reaching the point where I could see the Colorado River.

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It sparkled like a jewel at the base of an immense quilt of sand, pattern, and color.

After drawing, I began to hike back up. Quite quickly I began to realize that those millions of years I traversed would become much heavier on the way up. I made my way slowly up, still buoyed by the incredible surroundings, and by having shed as many layers as was decent.

 
 

I stopped to take a rest, when I heard a chomping above me. There, perched on an outcropping, was a bighorn sheep with an imposing pair of swirling horns.

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Somehow seeing this one lone inhabitant shrunken to an insignificant scale by its home, made the vastness of the Canyon all the more apparent.

 
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I finally reached the top of the canyon wall, on wobbly legs, feeling like I had climbed every bit of millions of years.