Our niece, Jill, has a friend from college. Her name is Leah and she is married to Brian. Leah invited us to visit them in the Grand Canyon. She and Brian live in the Canyon along with 3,000 other people employed by the park and other businesses there. Brian is a Park Ranger who goes out into the canyon for longer periods of time and also on the Colorado River through the canyon to check on things. He looks for missing or injured tourists among other things. Leah works for the Grand Canyon Association. A group who raises money for the Grand Canyon preservation. Alex and I had been to the Grand Canyon many times before but we were very excited to get a tour from two people who's life is everything Grand Canyon.
Leah came to our RV park just outside the National Park to pick us up. The first stop in the tour was to see the housing area in the park. It reminded us of any military housing area except for the fact that it's in a beautiful forest. We picked up Brian and headed to The Kolb House.
The Kolb brothers were photographers who settled in the Canyon in 1901. They built a house on the edge of the Canyon and started taking pictures and movies. Building a house in the Canyon and taking pictures and movies was not an easy task. They would sell their pictures to the tourists once they started coming to the Canyon.
Part of the house is opened to the public in the form of a bookstore and an exhibit hall. We quickly took a look around the public area and met some of Leah's co-workers and then headed down to the main living area of the house which is closed to the public. I'm not sure why it's closed to the public as I forgot to ask Leah, but my guess it that it would be very difficult, and unsafe, to have thousands of people going through each year. You'll see why when you see the house and our pictures.
What makes it so special to see The Kolb house and learn about their life, is the fact that it was such a remote, dangerous, and unforgiving place. Below are some links to the story of the Kolb brothers. An amazing story of the Canyon and the brothers. Also below are the pictures we took of the house.
It was a wonderful afternoon. Thank you Leah and Brian!
http://www.grandcanyon.org/kolb/kolbbrothers.asp
Here's our pictures: Click the link, select Slideshow and hit F-11 to enlarge the pictures. Pay attention to all the beautiful lamps in the house.
https://picasaweb.google.com/ChrisTorrance/GrandCanyonAndKolbHouseStudio?authkey=Gv1sRgCKGSt6fezsyPOQ#
Here's a good video of the Kolb Brothers' story:
http://www.azcentral.com/video/bcplayer/48592718001&pop=1
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