Broke but happy at the Grand Canyon

by Edwin

About an hour before sunrise I woke up (I had set my alarm clock). Just before I started driving, another staffmember of the resort walked by and wished me a good journey. His colleague of last night had told about me and so he also knew that I stayed at the parking place. I think this was one of the best parking places I stayed with my car so far: someone that wished me goodnight and someone that wished me good morning, that’s a nice service! 🙂

I was very happy that I started driving before sunrise, because it gave a beautiful view to see everything slowly becoming light in this area with red rocks. The first hour of the day I just drove relaxed and stopped many times to make pictures. Then I started to make more miles, because it was still a long way to the Grand Canyon. I stopped in a small place called Moab to have breakfast and then I drove for many hours until I was very tired and needed a break and I also needed some gas for the car. I think that I drove about eight or nine hours today and that was quiet long for what I’m used to. After a short break and some red bull I continued driving.

I really enjoyed driving today again, because it gives much time to think about everything. It gives me the opportunity to get new ideas for my company for example. It’s just nice to let your thoughts go everywhere. The view was really wide again, but in difference to the state Wyoming is Utah far from boring. Everywhere are beautiful red rocks and although the view is wide, there is a lot to see.

When I was about to enter the Grand Canyon National Park I discovered that my credit cards had reached their monthly limit. That was a big disappointment, because now I was out of money. Fortunately I had just exactly enough money to enter the national park. The first half hour I couldn’t really enjoy the beauty of the Grand Canyon, simply because I realized that I probably would have no money for the next one or two days. Although I was broke, the situation was not to bad. I had tanked this afternoon, so I would still be able to drive about 350 miles. I also had enough water, cola and snacks in the car, so I would survive it for a couple of days. But of course the situation was far from comfortable.

The nice thing of being a believer is that you can always fall back on God. So I just prayed about the whole situation and stopped worrying about my problems. From that moment I could enjoy the beauty of the Grand Canyon. A lot of people already told me that it would be beautiful, but it was way more than that. It was absolutely overwhelming. I stopped my car at the ‘grandview point’ where I had a perfect view over the canyon and I climbed on a rock and sat down there to watch the sunset. I stayed there till after sunset, there was so much to see. Every minute the colors changed and the rocks looked different. Then it became really quite, because most people left the park again at night. Not me, because I parked my car next to the viewpoint to stay there for the night and to wait for the sunrise in the morning.

Just like yesterday I ended the day by watching the stars, because it was even darker than the location of last night. At top of the Grand Canyon where I was, there was no single light at all. The only light came from those billions little stars in the sky. For some kind of reason I took me quite some time to fall asleep, but I had something nice to look forward to: sunrise at the Grand Canyon.

P.S. By the time I publish this post I can tell you that the problems were solved the next day, but of course I didn’t know that yet this day.