In October 2000, I was sent on a business trip to Phoenix Arizona to help in the testing of some software I had developed for the The Administrative Office of the US Courts. The plan was to install the software on 12 computers on Thursday and Friday and to be around on Monday and Tuesday to help the testers if anything came up. I looked at the plan and realized that I would be in Arizona for the weekend and began to think of a place I could visit while I was out there. After looking at a map, I determined that the Grand Canyon was only about 5 hours away and was a perfect place to visit. I talked to Glenn, a fellow AMSer, and Dominic, my point of contact at the US Courts, who were going to be in Phoenix with me and they indicated that they also wanted to go to the Canyon. So we began to make some plans for our visit. This included booking a hotel in the National Park and getting info on hiking in the canyon.

We were able to finish installing the software on the computers around noon on Friday and soon headed North on the Interstate to the Grand Canyon. The trip was interesting as we changed our altitude by 6000 feet and saw several different climates. We arrived in the park near sunset and stopped at Mather Point. It was quite amazing to see how large the canyon is and to see the color of the canyon walls change as the sun shifted position. We were planning to watch the World Series between the Mets and the Yankees but were surprised to only catch the last few innings of the game, we had forgotten that the game was live and we were no longer in the Eastern Time Zone.

The next day we woke up and went out to Hermit's Point to begin our hike. In the beginning the hike was not bad, but after a few hours, I realized that I was not quite fit enough to continue the hike. My companions and I then headed back up. I took the bus back to the hotel and my companions, who were much more fit than I, began a hike along the rim from Hermit's Point back to Grand Canyon village. On my way back to the hotel, I stopped at Hopi Point to see a very interesting thing - A rainbow below me in the Grand Canyon. Later that night we went to the Bright Angel Lodge to have a steak dinner in the Arizona Room.

After having breakfast at the hotel, we packed up the car and headed back to Phoenix. This time we stopped to see the Red Rock Canyon in Sedona. It was another amazing place to visit.

I took these photos with a Minolta Point & Shoot camera and used print film. The photos were digitalized using a Visioneer scanner and were cleaned up a bit with Adobe PhotoShop Elements. I had quite good luck photographing the Grand Canyon and I was able to capture a rainbow in the Hopi Point pictures. Additional Camera Information