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Rethinking the “Bucket List” concept...the Grand Canyon

Millyellen & Drew

Updated: May 12, 2019

First of all let’s dwell on the positive driving toward the Grand Canyon... Route 160 and Route 89 are the best landscapes I (Millyellen) have ever seen in the USA that lasts for days!

Now to the odd post before us: both I and Drew wrote a section pertaining to our Grand Canyon experience. Think of every picture you’ve ever seen of the awesomeness of the Grand Canyon. Have it in your mind? I did too.

Millyellen: Now let’s think of the possibilities or precautions before our time here: hot, sunburn possibility, dehydration potential, psyche myself up for a canyon hike my husband might want to accomplish, don’t allow our amazing teenage son to be another casualty added to tourists dying here this year. Then soak in the view, miles of canyon, depth, color, vastness, awestruck grander my eyes have never seen before....thinking of all the Grand Canyon screen savers, vibrant puzzles or Ken Burns’ The National Parks: America's Best Idea documentary including the Grand Canyon....with me?

Nothing we experienced at all!

I anticipated being in the grander and experiencing God the way I only do at the ocean. And to be here for maybe the only day in my life without seeing the canyon, witnessing the colors, viewing the other side of the canyon, is heartbreaking. I know the land thirsts for water and cloud protection. And I know every tourist, visitor, or one who comes to worship here has expectations of what their perfect weather conditions at the Grand Canyon will be. I’m just expressing that drenching rain, intense fog and then steady snow was not the way I envisioned our May trip to enfold. Because the reality is: much of grand, my eyes couldn’t see. Not sure if God continually wants to show me that grand is found in the little things like every day flowers that come into view or the sparrow or the raven or the hill or smile from a family member or stranger. Perhaps my eyes need to testify to other glorious things before me each day (like the elk we happened upon). Perhaps this is not to be a day that marks my life as checking off something from my Bucket List that gives me a false sense of how rich my life is. Perhaps everything truly desired in life I already have seen or experienced....and I shouldn’t pine for other “majesty” because life is rich just as it is.

Drew: We are learning the lesson of receiving the blessings God gives us rather than the ones we expect…or sometimes, just plain hope for. Our visit to Grand Canyon National Park was a blessing in some ways, but incredibly disappointing. This was Millyellen’s #1 stop on our trip, a bucket list kind of place for her. We intentionally drove quite a bit south just for the experience of this park. We spent the entire night before tenting below freezing. Now that we have, we know we CAN do it, we just would REALLY prefer not to! Getting out of sleeping bags exhausted didn’t help the mood when the view from the rim was about 30 feet out into the Grand Canyon. We could see down, but sometimes we couldn’t even see that far. We decided to try to wait it out and found that Millyellen and my rain jackets define waterproof differently than do we. And then…the glory…SNOW!!! It began to snow on us soaked, cold, shivering drowned-rat looking Strayer Family “Adventure”! We used some of the “Here’s a blessing for your trip when you need it gift” and bought warm drinks for each of us and a hearty breakfast at El Tovar Dining Room, a fancy restaurant at the Grand Canyon lodge in the park. And then we rode the shuttle back to the Visitor Center, changed into dry clothes and drove through the snow to lower altitude (dry) ground on our way up to Page, Arizona – the home of Lower Antelope Canyon. We set up our tent and prepared for the next day’s adventure!

Can you see the Grand Canyon Drew? Friends, can you see it? No, me neither.

A momentary break in the clouds provided at least a cliff view.


Our drenched stroll as we begged for clearer skies before us or to our right.

Can you spot the 2 elk? They did not mind the rain mixed with snow.

Thankful for warmth of tea and friends who provided it.

Can you believe this snow?

Snow on the canyon walls as we exited the Grand Canyon.

Grand Canyon, our expectations have much to teach us....can we see the grandeur of this picture? We are trying....

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