Creation of the Word Awesome

"Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True, And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona.  Not all holes, or games, are created equal."
     - George F. Will

Awesome: That which inspires awe.  I'm guaranteed this word was first used by a person standing at the Grand Canyon.  When I drove into Grand Canyon National Park the night before I had absolutely no idea what I was driving through.  I had to drive from the north end south to find my hotel and didn't realize that I was only feet from one of the greatest sights on the planet.  At 18 miles wide and a mile deep the Grand Canyon was carved out millions of years ago by the Colorado River.  It's force, with help from numerous tributaries carved out what over five million people a year come to see.

That morning I woke up with extremely high expectations only to have them easily met and blown away.  I got there around 9:30AM and knew I only had a short amount of time to spend, just like with Bryce.  Of course this also costs $25 to get in but after seeing Bryce I knew it didn't matter.  My first views had an intense "WOW" factor almost laughable that something like this could exist.  I started taking as many pictures as possible with my mini-12mega pixel camera.  As I made my way around it was cool to see how the terrain changed based on my perspective.  I could be taking a picture of the shelf or gorge in front of me, walk 50 feet down the trail and watch that same spot transform into something completely different.

There were of course people from all over the world speaking all kinds of languages.  I made friends with a German couple that was nice enough to take my picture (I suck at taking self-portraits).  I started talking to the husband, who was nice enough to take a couple of pictures at different angles for me, about the game of baseball.  I was all decked out in Red Sox gear (surprise, surprise).  I had my "Wicked big Sox fan" shirt on and he started asking me questions about them and where I was from.  He then proceeded to tell me how he, along with most people in Germany don't like baseball.  They are all "football" people and find baseball to be incredibly boring.  I had to persuade him otherwise as he kept asking me how the game was played, and what a home run meant, and the pitcher, catcher did along with other things.  It was a great conversation to have and even better to see another perspective on my favorite sport.  He said he couldn't believe they'd pay these fat, overweight players millions of dollars when they may not even get the ball the entire game!  I couldn't disagree with him on that.

I moved further down the rim and came across a group being guided by a park ranger that was teaching them about the geology and history of the canyon.  I poked my head in for some of it and it's mind-blowing to think that at one point this ginormous hole in the ground was once filled in before the river came plowing through.  I guess the Colorado River was flowing from a height of 14,000 feet and the canyon is at 7,000 (making it hard to breathe by the way) making it easy for the river to force its way through, taking pieces of Earth with it on its travels.

This was a great experience and would have been even better had I been with someone to experience it with. Not only for picture taking purposes, but being at such an awesome place is something I would like to have shared with somebody.  Either way it is a day I will never forget.  I was only able to spend two hours there and only covered maybe two miles around the rim so I did not see too much, but what I did was worth way more than $25!  I have to make my way back to truly experience what the canyon has to offer such as white-water rafting and hiking tours, etc.  But my time was up and I was absolutely exhausted at this point and just wanted to keep moving forward.  So I got back in my poor, beaten up Focus and finally headed for California.