Jack takes in the vistas of the Grand Canyon through a 25-cents-a-peek telescope. He’s very proud of his ranger hat and the Junior Ranger badges that he and Peter earned by drawing pictures, observing animals and rocks and trees, and learning about the origins of the canyon at a ranger lecture. A few people stopped to ask him questions, seeing as he had a hat and badge, and he gladly imparted all of his knowledge–the river carved the canyon, and squirrels can be dangerous.

The Grand Canyon trip was a great success; if you’re ever planning a Western trip, I can highly recommend the Grand Canyon Railway package. We spent a night in Williams, Arizona, took a two-hour train ride to the canyon in the morning, spent a night at a hotel in the park, boarded a train the next afternoon, and spent another night in Williams. They took care of moving our bags from our Williams room to our canyon room and back, and meals in Williams were included (at the buffet-style restaurant). A chain of free shuttle buses runs along the rim–not as far east as I’d have liked (we didn’t get to the ruins because it was a hike that the guys weren’t up to yet), but certainly over enough ground that we got to see and do a lot.

Arizona light, though, was tricky for me; I’m used to the more subdued light of a Minnesota spring, where 100-speed film is good in bright light and even 400-speed can be used outside to good effect. The slowest film I brought was ISO 64, and even then my cameras complained with their red “over-exposed” lights at anything bigger than f16. So I mostly limited my picture-taking to mornings and evenings and enjoyed the views like a normal person–the grandeur of the canyon is largely impervious to film anyway.

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