Grand Canyon in USA - What a splendid beauty of Mother Earth?

It was the day that we had a retreat…a real retreat from Eisenhower fellowship. We all got into a bus and started traveling towards grand canyon with two staff members from Eisenhower fellowship; Leigh Cohen and Holly Logen.

Holly me and Leigh

When we stopped for lunch at Sedona and waiting in the line with other Sri Lankan fellows I saw one gentleman walking with a very familiar cap on his head. I was watching it and recognized the emblem on it. It was our lion the Sri Lankan golden lion!!! I was surprised and pointed out it to other fellows and yes we started talking…so that’s how we met Captain Dhammika Dias who is a Navy officer under a training here in USA. It’s really surprising and we all were very happy to say hello to each other far away from our Mother land.

me, Capt.Dias, Saliya, Jayantha and Anuruddha

We all reach the Yavapai Lodge at Grand Canyon east Rim at 4pm. Leigh and Holly suggested we should watch Sun Set. So having not seeing the Grand Canyon yet! I got into shuttle bus with a question mark on my head. What kind of place this is???  Well we reached Mather Point at 4.40pm and after a short walk we went to Mather Point and it was so many WOWS….I heard…Oh my goodness..what a piece of work…I was thinking who did this???? That is a river, The Colorado river has done over million years. It’s eroded ground with 447 km long, 29 km wide, and 1.6km deep. http://www.nps.gov/grca/index.htm. After creating such a great piece of ground Colorado river still flows silently and we saw it at a distance just like a snake.

Colorado river today

 

sunset at Canyon

Sun set was so beautiful, we took several picture and left Mather point as it was getting much cooler.
Next day we had a guided tour around South rim of Grand Canyon and it showed us more amazing landscapes. I had an opportunity to hear about biodiversity of the Canyon from a park officer and rest of the day was relaxing when other went for a helicopter ride.

Next day morning was the time for Sun Rise..I was thinking of Adam’s Peak (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Pada_%28Sri_Lanka%29) and this was huge and landscape was totally different from Adam’s Peak. So again it was a different beauty as it was full moon Poya day and we witness the beauty of full moon and the rising sun. Then we went to Imax movie theater in nearby city and it was a 45 minute film on history of Grand Canyon. It was so nicely done and watching it at 3D theater was giving us the real feeling of the Colorado river and the Canyon. It reminded me my experience of learning about planets and weather in Norrokoping, Sweden during Climate Change Training course last year which was a similar theater which gave us 3D experience.

Depth of Canyon

Different colours

Sun rise 

Sri Lankans at canyon Anuruddha, me, Heshma and Jayantha (Saliya absent) 

Well that was my experience at Grand Canyon. Throughout my stay there I was trying to understand who I am, and what kind of impact we as human being put on this Mother Earth but no matter still she is giving us so much back. I felt so small there as the Grand Canyon is a massive piece of work done by the Colorado River.

What a retreat in the middle of the Eisenhower fellowship - Thank you!