As I was brushing my teeth, some movement on the ground a few feet away caught my attention. At first it looked like a toad, and when it moved it did so in a toad-like fashion.
Upon closer examination, I realized it was some sort of lizard and yelled for Ken to bring the camera. I found out that it was a Greater Short-horned Lizard, also sometimes mistakenly referred to as a horny toad or horned toad. He had me fooled at first, too, with his chubby body close to the ground, and his extremely short, skinny, almost invisible tail.
Just goes to show you that if it looks like a toad and walks like a toad, that doesn’t always mean it must be a toad! They’re not real fast movers and blend perfectly with their environment. They are sit-and-wait hunters, often positioning themselves at the opening of an ant hill and gobbling up ants as they emerge. They also have the ability to accurately squirt blood from their eyes when threatened as a defense mechanism!
We finished packing the Jeep and headed into Grand Canyon National Park to the North Rim, passing several sinkhole lakes on the way, as well as a small group of bison, and large expanses of beautiful open plains fringed with forests of mixed pines and birch.
We decided to view the canyon from Point Imperial, which is the highest elevation in the park, at 8803 feet! Our first views of the canyon were from the parking area.
Then we proceeded to the actual point, and it was truly amazing. The vastness and the beauty were absolutely breathtaking, and the pictures I took don’t begin to do it justice.
We spent quite a bit of time there and I took a ton of pictures, many of which were redundant as I was trying to get better exposures – something which I am not yet skilled at. (Perhaps later when I really have the time to spend, I’ll edit them in Lightroom and re-post some of them… but for now my time for such things is very limited.) We ate lunch there, and then made our way back out of the park, this time passing a herd of probably 50 bison!
One of the areas we drove through had been burned in forest fires years ago. The large amount of dead wood both standing and lying on the ground was plainly visible, as the re-growth was still relatively new.
Once out of the park, we continued through vast expanses of desert, getting another view of the Vermilion Cliffs and a couple of dust devils.
Our route took us through the very scenic Fredonia with its remarkable rock formations. The endless beauty of this entire day was almost more than one can take in, and it continued as we crossed into Utah.
There's a ton more pictures to see - go look!
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