You are certain that each viewpoint must be the absolute best but then you arrive at the next one and another extraordinary vista presents itself.
We had planned to visit here last Thanksgiving, but were shut out by a winter storm - while the temperature at Desert View did drop down into the 20s during the night, it was a gorgeous, sunny day.
We left Dead Horse Ranch State Park at 4 to get to the rim for sunrise.
We were thrilled to see the faint pink and blue dawn glow around the canyon edge disappear as the sun rose and started painting the walls inside the canyon.
The park is closed past Desert View, so we went out to that viewpoint and slowly worked our way back to Grand Canyon Village.
Our early start was not only rewarded with spectacular views but we also saw elk browsing just beyond the park entrance.
The route back to our campsite took us right past Tuzigoot National Monument via Sedona. The road was equal parts terrifying and exquisite.
It seriously looked like something from a high performance car commercial - contorted, hairpin turns everywhere as you lost 4,000 feet of elevation in just a few miles.
We have definitely found what we're doing for next Thanksgiving though; the whole Sedona area was drop-dead gorgeous.
Tuzigoot is the site of a very elaborate complex constructed and inhabited between 1100 and 1400 by ancestors of the modern Pueblo people.
The Verde Valley was apparently a great place to live as the complex grew over time to almost a hundred units.
The site was excavated, reconstructed, and established as a national monument in the 1930s.
The area in which it is situated is beginning to make a recovery after decades of abuse as the waste site from copper mining.
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