When you enter the park from the north side, there is absolutely no question that you are in a forest.
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We stayed at the Grand Canyon Lodge, built in the late 1920s, then rebuilt in the 1930s after a fire. The guest rooms are actually a series of cabins, described as "rustic." What they are is a curious blend of modern plumbing and electrical fixtures with 1930s buildings--really quite comfortable, and quiet, but without TVs or Internet service. (There is wireless Internet service at the general store a couple of miles away, but if you really want Internet service, as I did, this isn't very convenient.)
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It isn't obvious from the picture, but some of the window panes are the wavy glass that was still being used into the 1920s before newer techniques for making proper plate glass came into use.
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You pay a little bit of a premium for the rim view cabins--and I would have gladly done so, but they are booked well in advance, and I could not get one. But guess what? There are so many trees along the rim that:
1. Many of the rim view cabins are somewhat screened from the view anyway.
2. Cabins like ours are so close to the rim (about 200-300 feet) that it doesn't make that much of a difference.
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Here's one of the rim view cabins that is really, really on the rim!
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The outside of the lodge:
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Yes, the sign is done in the same font as the buildings in Jurassic Park. I suspect that this is some common style of the period when a lot of these national park concessions were being built, and the set designer for Jurassic Park used it for that reason.
This picture of the inside of the restaurant really doesn't capture its grandeur--the combination of bright illumination from those amazing picture windows, and a fairly dark interior. The food was expensive (along with everything else there), but astonishingly good.
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And of course, here's a picture from our table, taken the last morning, after smoke from a forest fire had started to obscure the view.
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If you arrive in the afternoon, make reservations immediately, or you will be getting your dinner from the deli, which was so-so on food but expensive.
More pictures later--and there are some astonishing pictures to show.
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