grand canyon | greg and gabi

i can lie. it’s been a dream of mine to see america for myself since i was about 8 years old. it’s such a BIG country, with such a crazy history and has such a massive influence on western culture, sports, art, music and so much more. and after making a LOT of american friends during our 2 years in korea, plus having a brother and sister-in-law living there, it was a no-brainer.

the first part of our trip comprised a sad goodbye to korea, our home for the last 2 years. i never thought i’d ever even travel to asia, let alone live there. it’s impossible to sum up our time there, but the people, culture, food and country crept incredibly deep into our hearts. it’s a time of our lives that we’ll always treasure. so it wasn’t without a few tears that we got on the plane at incheon airport, handed in our residence cards and said a final goodbye to the land of the morning calm.

we flew to through a snowy beijing to LAX, for a 21 hour layover before reaching denver, where my brother and sister-in-law stay. we checked into a b&b and strolled around the neighbourhoods of LA, trying to take in suburban america that we’d only ever seen on tv. we popped into an italian place that our host recommended, and gorged ourselves on real bread, pizaa and pasta for the first time in a few years. having not had to tip in korea, i was quite awkward in tipping…following the waiter to the cash register, standing arbitrarily around waiting…in the end, we strolled home and flopped into bed. let me just mention that we left china at 9:30pm and arrived in LA at 7:30pm on the same day…after 14 hours of flying. kind of messes your brain (and sleep patterns) up.

the following morning we rented some (shaky chinese) bikes from our host and cycled to venice beach, which he assured us was “about 25 minutes away”…after just over an hour of cycling, we finally arrived at a windy venice beach. it was quite epic seeing the pacific ocean, foreshadowed by kids skating over graffiti-covered concrete, just like in the movies. we couldn’t stay long, as our flight to denver was in the afternoon. on the way home, gabi’s dodgy bike broke, the entire crank fell off. fortunately, right next to a payphone, so we called our host who gladly came to fetch us with his car, and got us to the airport in time.

venice beach

gabi’s busted bike

the first part of our US journey would be a 2 week stay with gabi’s brother, robert and his wife carrie, in loveland, colorado. but the first week would involve an epic roadtrip through colorado, utah and arizona, to the one and only grand canyon.

we arrived late that night in loveland, and after punishing a qdoba burrito the size of my head, we hit the hay…only to be awakened at 5am, ready to take to the road. first, we were heading to ski cooper resort to do some snowboarding! heading over the loveland pass, we hit some snow…now i thought i’d seen snow in korea, but this all changed in an instant. visibility went from 30 meters to 5 meters in a matter of seconds…but we kept on driving. now we went snowboarding in korea at one of their top resorts, but even that couldn’t compare to a rather small resort in colorado. especially when the small blizzard made it way to the slopes…the sheer wildness of it all was just so awesome. pine trees, a foot of powder, tearing down the slopes of the rocky mountains with about 10 meters visibility as the snow was pounding down – priceless.

driving over the loveland pass through a small snowstorm

making our way to ski cooper through a winter wonderland

after only (just) managing to get our car out of the parking lot, we made our way to a little town called fruita near the colorado/utah border where we spent the night. we were up early the next morning and headed through utah and arizona. the landscape change from snow-covered peaks to earthy-red clay and sand is quite dramatic. little outcrops of stone & sand called ‘mesas’ dot the horizon, only disturbed by the straight black highway splitting it down the middle. and then, we were there.

the open road

according to ron swanson, the grand canyon is the only place a man is allowed to cry, and i could see why. it’s strange how beautiful a mile-deep hole in the earth can look, and how insignificant it can make you feel. i could easily have just sat there on the snow-covered rim for hours, stunned. i think we did.

our first view of the canyon from the south rim

and then we checked into our lodgings for the night in little town outside grand canyon national park, called tusayan. due the large amounts of snow all around the canyon, we decided not to do a hike down into the canyon, as it would have required crampons or yak-traks on our shoes. so we did the rim trail, which follows the south rim of the canyon for about 6km. and it was also covered in about a foot of snow, which made for some pretty epic photos. we spent the day just staring into the canyon, and woke the next morning around 5:30am to watch the sunrise over the canyon…it was easily the coldest i’ve ever been in my life, and it got to -20 celcius in korea a few times. with icy winds was howling up the walls of the canyon and no sunlight, we didn’t stick around too long.

one of the viewpoints littered with tourists

sunrise over the grand canyon

on the road back to colorado we stayed in moab, a little town outside arches national park, where we watched the sun set on the same day through utah’s famous delicate arch. the next day we checked out another park, colorado national monument, which was also breathtaking. after 14 hours of driving and only going through 3 states, as well as seeing some unbelievable natural wonders, you kind of get an idea of just how big the US is.

the south window arch at arches national park

gabi and i in the delicate arch

sunset at arches national park

back in colorado, we spent the next week eating copious amounts of good food, and had one more epic snowboarding experience at loveland ski area, where robert and i snowboarded down from the top of the actual american continental divide, at 13,000ft, from top to bottom, on a clear blue sky colorado day.