Get your kicks on Rte. 66! I’ll talk about the Grand Canyon in a minute, but first of all let me mention a great serendipitous event about our stay here. We ended up in Williams, AZ because I found a cheap motel here, and at the time I made a mental note that I liked the fact that it was on Rte. 66. We got in SO LATE from Las Vegas last night--Shut up Darren, I wasn’t gambling!...and I did not come home with a Vegas wife!--that we didn’t see the little town. But today we discovered this great little old fashioned Rte. 66 town with diners and souvenir shops and quaint motels – it really looks straight out of the 1950s, even with some classic cars and pick up trucks downtown. I love it!
So anyway, meanwhile, back at the Grand Canyon. After sleeping in a bit and having breakfast at the hotel, we made the drive up to the Grand Canyon. Some things like this that you’ve heard so much about—and actually we thought that Old Faithful somewhat fell into this category—end up seeming a little anti-climactic in real life; The Grand Canyon is quite the opposite: even bigger and better than you could have pictured. Even with all the pictures and movies I’ve seen which depict it, nothing really prepares you for its magnitude and grandeur. Once again words fail me to describe it. I realize of course that most people except me have already seen it, so maybe I don’t have to. Even though we scheduled a whole day here, we still didn’t end up with enough time to hike down to the canyon floor. Apparently you really need two days and reservations made a year in advance to get a cabin down below. (Oh sure, like I could really be that organized!) But really just walking all along the south rim was immensely satisfying for us. I think my camera would have exploded if I’d gone further! And by the time we got up to the Grand View Village for ice cream and watched the condors soaring overhead we all felt 1) sufficiently grand-canyoned for one day and 2) like we want to come back and stay longer, which is only about the 900th time we’ve said that on this trip!
So we rode the free air-conditioned shuttle (is this a great country or what?) back to our car and then drove back into Williams. We went downtown and had a great dinner at a restaurant down there. They had wonderful vegetarian sandwiches, homemade potato salad and 46 kinds of pie! (After an anguished decision making process I picked coconut crème – wish you had been there Min! It was big enough for both of us; not that that stopped me.) I thought I had died and gone to heaven. After dinner JD and I walked all over the quaint little town and enjoyed ourselves so much! And tonight Anthony’s cellphone even had a miraculous healing – so all in all it has been a great day. Tomorrow: On to the Four Corners which will be states 20, 21, and 22 on this trip. We’ll stay the night in Albuquerque and then on to Arkansas!! (By the way: Still no one from Delaware or Rhode Island here – do people from those states never travel anywhere?!)
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