Home > Our Blog > Visit the Grand Canyon—But Not the One in Arizona!

Blog Post

Visit the Grand Canyon—But Not the One in Arizona!

Posted April 28, 2010 by Patrick Young, Esq.
Categories: Hate Watch

If the immigrant rights movement is going to ask you to pass up visiting Arizona because of that state’s new racist law, we have to give you vacation alternatives.

Of course, the biggest Arizona attraction is the Grand Canyon.

I thought that the best alternatives to the Grand Canyon itself are the various “Grand Canyons of the [fill in the blank]” around the country. Now none of these other “Grand Canyons” are quite as big (or grand), but they are a sort of Nicorette for canyon withdrawal. Over the next few weeks I’ll look at a bunch of these alternatives to taking the kids to the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Letchworth Park, which is a half-hour south of Rochester, is the “Grand Canyon of New York.” I have visited Letchworth many times and have to say it is the most genteel of the canyons Three waterfalls drop the Genesee River into an 800-foot deep gorge. Lovely hiking trails make burro-less access to the canyon easy. And there is even an old Victorian inn at the precipice above the gorge where you can stay or have an elegant dinner.

There are stone cottages available for rent, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and ranger-led nature and historic tours.

There is a neat museum at the park where you can visit an Iroquois longhouse and see artifacts from early settlers in the valley. The ruins of an old canal are on the eastern edge of the gorge. For the adventurous, you can hitch a ride on a hot air balloon at sunset that floats right above the falls.

Here is some video of Letchworth: