The main story isn't very believable. The mom makes one joke on a trip where presumably they spent hours talking about how amazing the Grand Canyon is, including while viewing it. Both children ignored everything else said, focused on that joke, and one of them proceeded to explain to their mother that it wasn't that great like she said. It more sounds like the kids just weren't that happy to spend hours freezing to see the Grand Canyon.
Also, let's face it: The Grand Canyon isn't that amazing. It is a giant hole in the ground, literally.
When you contextualize it, the geological process are awe-inspiring, but the end result is, as nature goes, a solid "nice". That's it. It doesn't take a "joke" from the mom to produce that reaction.
I've been there too, and it was pretty spectacular.
The thing is, it takes a certain reference point to appreciate. A more mature one.
For kids, and the younger they are, much of their daily lives of filled with continual new and overwhelming experiences. Every experience is new or very fresh. Experiences like "I've never been this cold before", or "The sun is too hot" are just as overwhelming as "That is a very deep crack in the ground", but discomfort is also more immediate, and they haven't learned to attenuate and ignore discomfort signals like adults have.
Likewise, they have less grasp of time. When you are six, or ten, a decade is your whole life or more, and waiting an hour seems like forever, while for you and me, it is a blink in the day. 100 years for kids is nigh unimaginable, and an appreciation for the untold years it took to erode the grand canyon is unavailable, mentally.
So a visit to something like the grand canyon can be less than impressive.
It does make me wonder what a thousand year old being would appreciate, that I would find uninteresting or unimaginable.
My wife is from Europe and loves our National Parks, she would tell you the Grand Canyon was her #1 least favorite by far. Yosemite was probably her favorite.
I was lucky to see Grand Canyon for the first time at night, with full moon and no people around. It was magical. Only us (four people) and the tiny lights of trekkers in the bottom. And the beautiful soft light that the Moon provided the canyon with.
The next morning it looked great, but I knew we had experienced it in a much better way.
Coming off another week in the national parks (this time, Utah) - I’d encourage you to go see more/others.
GC can be pretty cool, but I’d not put it in my top 10 parks. Mainly because of the people and the mares ruin the effect on a hike. And, staying at the top is a bit boring.
For my money, Zion or Yosemite are better. Both with their own set of people related problems.
Off topic, but was at Bryce a couple days ago and some guy was FaceTiming at 7:30am filling the entire canyon with his and the other people’s voices. Terrible manners! Ruined the first 30m of the hike.
Yes but the fact that your parent post exists is proof that not everybody thinks like that - and bored kids are not the most reflecting, awe-inspirable human beings.
