On Saturday, February 21st, our family went for a date farm tour with the Bard Date Company. It was very interesting but strange to be walking in such a warm climate in the middle of February:) Some days it was a 40- 60 degree Celsius difference between Saskatchewan and Arizona!
The trees were in perfect lines every direction!
The palm’s fruit is Medjool dates which were brought over to be planted from the Old World. The original trees are still living in this area. The Medjool dates in Europe were originally only to be eaten by the Royal Family.
Imagine going up one of those 80 foot palms in a bucket to pick dates, especially when its windy:) The workers have to go to the top of each tree about 17 times each season to pollinate, prune, pick, etc.
We all enjoyed the tour, even though some of us couldn’t digest the thought of eating much of that fruit.
On February 24th, Dad and I set off for a flight over the Grand Canyon with Papillon tours. Here is a video of some of the footage I got with our family playing background music – How Great Thou Art.
On Thursday, February 19, we had a tour at Living Waters Publications. It was interesting to meet Ray Comfort and his staff. The night before we came, the Living Waters parking lot was filled with cameras and actors. They were filming a scene of “Audacity”, their newest movie. We got to watch a couple clips of a scene with an EMT, who was actually Ray Comfort’s “favorite” atheist friend:)
We also got to see Ray Comfort’s very humorous side. The whole bookstore area was covered in different funny signs. He also had a whole Bible in one picture frame. Those words were mighty hard to read, even with a magnifying glass!
If you blow this picture up, you will see: “Stand up. I’m just a man!” We all bent down on our knees to see what the tiny print said:)
Upon coming out of the building, who of all people should we see but Josh and Anna Duggar getting out of their car! They were doing some work with Ray Comfort.
We had an awesome time, and pray that the Lord would use us and the tracts we bought for His glory.
On Tuesday, February 17, we toured the Grand Canyon with Canyon Ministries. Note, If you click on the individual pictures they will be enlarged to see the grandeur of the canyon.
It is amazing to see the view from the rim of the canyon for the first time. All of the sudden you are gazing at a huge piece of artwork before you and it literally looks like it cannot be as vast as it seems. It almost makes you think that what you are looking at is just a picture.
The tour started off near the townsite of Grand Canyon with a presentation on the rock layers and intrepretation of the evidence in the canyon. Then we did a short hike along the rim. One nice thing about American tourist sites compared to Canadian ones is that in the US you are allowed to go off the walkways or walk around the railings, if they have any, (that is if the womenfolk in your family let you:-) ).
If you look in the above picture you can see the same peak near the middle of the photo that Jesse and I took pictures near while hiking down.
Nate Loper, our tour guide.
This little guy was sun-tanning and enjoying the view!
As you can see there are hand-rails here, but at this point they were nice because the drop was far enough that if you fell you could probably count to ten before hitting the plateau far below.
After the hike we toured some of the museums and had lunch. Then the tour continued with us stopping at various points along the canyon with our tour guide, Nate, explaining things from a Biblical Creationist perspective all along the way.
The immense size of the canyon is hard to even comprehend when standing on the rim, yet alone from a picture, but at this point it probably is at least 16 km across! To give perspective, the widest point of the city of Saskatoon would probably fit in between the two rims of the canyon in this picture. It is hard to tell when you are there but the canyon is cut through a sloping piece of ground, so the North Rim is about 1000 feet higher than the South Rim where this picture is taken.
I had Andrew lean a little back over the railing to get a perspective of what I am guessing was a 2000 foot cliff.
Contrary to what I expected there were actually a lot of trees near the top of the canyon.
Of course most of us had to get our pictures taken preferebly near the edge! Not to say that we were as extreme as many of the tourists who stood inches from the edge or even had pictures taken of themselves jumping within a miniscule distance of the edge. But we also were not as chicken as the fellow with a snowboard helmet who said he was not taking it off until he got out of the state. He would not even go near the railings to be in a photo with his friends.
As the afternoon drew to a close we made our way to Desert tower lookout.
Before we climbed the tower, we stopped and had one last explanation of the canyon as well as a wonderful mini worship service, which was awesome!
Then up the tower we went.
The windows in the towers almost seemed like picture frames.
We were pleasantly surprised to see a plaque with a Bible verse on it overlooking the washout!
In this picture you can see the Kaibab upwarp in which the water would have had to flow uphill had the canyon formed via slow erosion by the Colorado River. This picture is taken pretty well level, as you can see, the land naturally slopes upward about a thousand feet. This alone is proof that the canyon is not a result of millions of years of erosion.
Then it was back into the Bus where we watched a Creation video while we were driven back to our hotel.
The Creation tour was wonderful, and the Canyon was breathtaking!
Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever. Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them.Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth. Psalm 104:5-9
