Postmarked April 25, 2013

A small man-made monument stands in contrast to the Grand Canyon's epic size.

The scale of the rifts that stretch across the topography of Arizona, carved out by the rushing Colorado River, is hard to fathom. Even standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon doesn't adequately impress the enormity of the monument. It stretches along 227 miles, and at its widest is over 18 miles wide, with a depth of over a mile. More than 2 billion years of history are exposed in the rock face of the cliffs. On the rim, the Grand Canyon's altitude means that in late April, temperatures still dip close to freezing, hard to reconcile with previous days' treks through desert country. At sunset, the haze in the air paints the receding cliffs in incremental shades, stretching endlessly into the distance.