National Park Road Trip: Journey East (Part 13)

A year of planning and a last minute change to California, meant we had a long, long drive back to Ohio, with not much to look forward towards. Our family’s epic summer road trip took us to several National Parks, amusement and theme parks, and a whole lot of fun.

Planning for spending two weeks in a car comes with its own set of nervousness. How would the kids act in tight quarters for days on end? Would there be epic family meltdowns to go with the spectacular views? How much was this going to cost us?

We planned and saved money as much as we could along the trip, and on occasion, we splurged. Our initial trip was having us heading back home from the Grand Tetons and seeing what we could find along the way. However, when we made a last minute change to head to Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm, it meant a monumental task of having to get back across country.

The good news is that having to drive back through some pretty boring parts of the country also meant we were going to get to check off another bucket list National Park we always wanted to see, the Grand Canyon.

Grand Canyon National Park

Ever since we started planning our family National Park trip, it was my motivation to try and see as many parks as feasible, and the Grand Canyon was high on the list. However, initial thoughts would put us way out of the realm of feasibility to diverge all the way down to the south rim and then have to make our way home.

That was until we went to California. Looking at the route back from Los Angeles to Cleveland along interstate 40 put us within striking distance of seeing the giant gorge. So we spent the 4th of July seeing the Grand Canyon.

The scope of the Grand Canyon is astounding and just as beautiful as you see in pictures.

We downloaded into our Gypsy app the Grand Canyon tour to be sure and hear which stops were worth seeing.

Along the way we saw some impressive vistas, gorgeous sunsets on some very windy overlooks, and even saw the Dessert View Watchtower.

Now granted we were only in the Grand Canyon area about 3 hours before having to find a place to stay for the night, but my overall impression was it was cool to see, but not sure I would need to go back. I felt we saw what the Grand Canyon encompassed within a very short time frame.

Perhaps it would be cool to do some tours that go down into the canyon, and even see some of the surrounding sites, but I felt we got a good taste of the Grand Canyon without having to fully experience the Grand Canyon.

What would follow was lots and lots of driving and seeing absolutely nothing for hours and hours. It is quite astonishing how so much of this country is just open space with nothing, including gas stations, for extended periods of time. After our lesson earlier in the trip of almost running out of gas, we made sure to always maintain at least half a tank of gas at all times.

It was also quite interesting when we were driving in Kansas at the mammoth scale of wind farms as far as the eye could see in every direction. It is awesome to see us embracing renewable energy on such a grand scale. The fields could still be used by farmers and the energy created by the wind fills a massive amount of our renewable energy.

The only saving grace coming up is our path would take us to one more amusement park, Worlds of Fun, before arriving back home. Here we come America!

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National Park Road Trip: Journey East (Part 13)

Grand Canyon National Park

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