MUMBLINGS August 18, 2005

Selecting Seven of the Greatest Wonders In The World is quite a task. Many different organizations, people, Riters ACT have named their seven and last week I named you my selection. As God or nature made wonders and others are man made.

Last week I got mine down to nine and will have to eliminate two before I get through writing this series about them. These wonders are only the ones that I personally have seen.

Three of the greatest God made selections is The Grand Canyon, in Arizona, Glacier National Park in Northwestern Montana on the Canadian Border, Lake Bakal in Southern Russia.

The lake I have not seen but it is the largest fresh water lake in the world. Running about 350 miles in length, several miles wide and over a mile deep. It has some animals and fish that can be found nowhere else in the world and also has 20% of all the fresh water on this earth. It has more water than all of our Great Lakes combined. I have not seen this lake but would like to.

The one I want to discuss this week is The Grand Canyon. I don't quite care what you say; it is phenomenal and beyond belief even though you may be looking at it.

It has been my pleasure to visit the Canyon four or five times and every time I am astonished and awed.

The Canyon is in Arizona which in itself has many great sites to be seen but none greater than the canyon. Arizona is the fifth largest state in our nation with about twice the size of Alabama and about the same population 4.5 million.

I visited Arizona several times and always want to go back. It gets hot there. It was 110 degrees up to 115 degrees this summer and several people lost their lives because of the heat. You can talk all you want to about it that it is not bad because it is dry heat but that is a bunch of tall tales. You can step out of an air condition building and it is like hitting a hot oven. It gets so hot.

You can let you imagination expand as much as it will about the size of The Grand Canyon and when you look over its rim it is much larger than you ever dreamed. I still get this sensation when looking at it.

Grand Canyon is on the Colorado River and has been flowing through and deepening the canyon for thousands of years and is continuing to wash tons and tons of silt each day making it go deeper and deeper.

Click here to continue

----------------------

Continued

The canyon is 217 miles in length and the width is 10 miles and is up to 30 miles in some spots.

Some areas Indians live at the bottom and the only way to get up and down to their homes is by horseback.

Grand Canyon National Park is large and contains 217,403 acres, which is larger than the entire area of Baldwin County, which is about 1,001,500 acres.

Before the park was seen by 4,308,549. It was 18,567,000.

There area few places that you can get hold of hotel rooms in the park but you cannot get reservation in advance because you have to take a chance on the weather. The last time we were there we were fortunate and got a nice room overlooking the park. You want to stay there fore a long time just gazing.

You may ride down in the park on mules, which takes several hours and you, can imagine how narrow the trail is. I never tried this but flew down in and over and around it one time.

Some people go down and get on a raft and flow down a fast Colorado River and even spending the night down at the bottom.

You are not supposed to feed the animals that include; ravens, coyote, deer and elk.

I could write pages about the Grand Canyon, which you can imagine hundreds of books, articles, pictures and etc. have been created about this great wonder of the world. The other eight wonders I mentioned last week that I have seen are : The Grand Canyon, The Great Wall Of China, The Pyramids, and other sites in Egypt, the Amazon River, The Empire State Building, in New York City, the Eiffel Tower, Great Barrier Reefs of Australia, and The Panama Canal.

See you again soon, I hope.