Day 23 - Las Vegas, NV

Saturday, May 26-27, 2018

Weather:  Sunny and mid-80’s

Steps: Shaun - 10,002, Shannon - 8,552

We got up late this morning because we’d stayed up too late the previous night, so we quickly ate food from the cooler and then began the process of getting the packed boxes to the car. Shaun pulled the car around to the valet, and Shannon waited for the bellman, but it took so long that the parking attendants made Shaun move off to the side. We finally got everything loaded, profusely thanked the bellman, and took the boxes to USPS. After eating at a Mediterranean restaurant, we dropped the rest of the extra food, storage items, and anything we couldn’t fit in our suitcases at Goodwill. It felt very freeing to strip down to the bare essentials, let me tell you.

We had to hightail it back to The Bellagio because Shannon had booked both of us pedicures and massages at the spa, which was a crazy, over-the-top, extravagant Mother’s Day gift. They gave us fluffy, white robes and flip flops and dropped us off in the massage staging area. It was insane, and we spent the time reading about the construction of the Bellagio Fountains from design to installation. It was fascinating to say the least. We also got a higher elevation look at the display in the Conservatory.

After a 50-minute Revive and Recover massage that was frickin’ fantastic, we headed down to the salon for an Elements of the Earth pedicure. Once our feet were as pretty as they’ve ever been in the history of the world (and boy do I feel sorry for the technicians since we’d just spent 3 weeks hiking in the desert!), we were taken back up to the spa area where we got to shower in super cool showers with rain heads and very pretty smelling products. Shannon paid the insane tab for our services, and we headed back to the room to get ready for our dinner at Lago and our Cirque du Soleil showing of O, the water show.

Lago is an Italian tapas restaurant in the Bellagio complex right on the fountains, and we arrived just in time to get a table at the window, which gave us the chance to see 3 different shows while we ate. Between Shannon and me, we ordered 8 different dishes and 2 desserts (a Lemoncello cake thing and a tiramisu that were delicious). It was a fantastic meal.

Our seats for O were right in front of the upper orchestra and against the wall, so no one was in front of us or next to us. It was awesome, but the theater was really cold, and we weren’t dressed for the chill. Shaun ended up buying two scarves to wrap around her shoulders, but they were super cool, so it wasn’t too much of a hardship.

The show was great...everything we’ve come to expect from Cirque du Soleil shows (we think this was our fifth one). The main concepts of fire and water flowed through the show, and the stage dropped and filled with water and then rose which caused the water to empty. It was very freaky because there were divers all over the place, and sometimes they’d dive when there was no water. Shannon’s favorite trick was the two fire spinners, and Shaun’s favorite was the last clown skit where they danced the salsa. It was hilarious!

After the show, we went out to see the fountains at night, and unfortunately their “every 20 minute schedule” went a bit awry. We had to wait almost an hour for the show to start up, but then they ran through two displays in quick succession to make up for the time lapse. It was so beautiful at night, and the place was packed.

When we’d had enough of the fountain show, we just went back to the room, ordered breakfast for the next morning, and packed for our flights. Shannon was leaving earlier than Shaun, so Shaun dropped Shan off, filled the rental car up with fuel, and then dropped it off with no problem. Both of us arrived back home safely, and luckily we had Memorial Day Monday to recover and prepare to re-enter real life.

What can I say to wrap up this epic adventure for posterity?  It seems like every place we go is more wonderful than the last place. We pushed ourselves further in our hiking experience, and we learned a ton about geology in general and the formation of this part of the world in particular. The people there were amazing...so so friendly and caring, and we were so well cared for in all of the various lodging types we experienced.

We didn’t see as many critters here as we did in Alaska and Wyoming, so we played the Critter Catch game for the first part of the trip, but we didn’t keep track after the first week or so. There were way more birds and lizards than large mammals, but we really enjoyed the free-ranging cattle that appeared often in unexpected places. My goal to see a California Condor was unrealized, which made me really sad, but we really loved meeting the Gambel’s Quail and the Pinyon Jay. We did have an up-close and personal relationship with a bighorn sheep, though, so that was something to write home about, and the defecating mule deer was a singular experience we’ll always remember. Of course, the ostriches and llamas were unexpected as well, so I guess we really weren’t that deprived when it came to critters after all! 

All told, the Grand Circle is an amazing place, and we were only able to see a small portion of it. We were able to check several national parks off of our list, but there are many more to see, so we’ll be back. I’m so glad we were able to see it together because it wouldn’t have been the same without my favorite travel companion. Our next big trip is to the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee, which will be in spring 2020 2022, so stay tuned for another epic chapter in Shaun and Shannon’s Awesome Adventures!

Day 22 - Williams to Las Vegas

Friday, May 25, 2018

Weather:  Sunny and high 80’s

Steps: Shaun - 15,902, Shannon - 14,036

With sad hearts, we left the Grand Circle area after checking out of the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the car (we are officially in get-rid-of-shit mode). The drive to Las Vegas took 3 ½ hours, with a short stop at the Lake Mead Visitor Center.

Once we arrived in Vegas, we went to the Writer’s Block Bookstore that Shannon had found online, which turned out to be a very eclectic store. We stayed there for a half hour or so and then checked out some antique stores in the Art District and ate at an interesting hipster-type place called Esther’s Kitchen. We didn’t find anything of substance in the area, so we headed off to The Bellagio.

Since this was our final resting place, we needed to deal with the insane amount of crap we’d gathered over the last 22 days. First though, we had to get it into our room, and we were definitely not prepared to have it valeted, so we parked in the parking structure and conned a very nice bellhop to accompany us and escort us and our stuff to our room. I got us registered, and after about 5 hours (ok, maybe a bit of an exaggeration), Shannon and Mr. Bellhop showed up. In her defense, getting all our stuff on one luggage cart required all of Shannon’s superior organization skills.

The unfortunate thing about The Bellagio is that the guest rooms can only be accessed by walking all the way through the casino. Shan and I noticed that it was kind of smoky, and we thought how rude it was that someone was smoking in a public building (we found out later that it’s legal to smoke in a casino in Vegas). I’m not kidding when I say that it was probably a mile from the lobby to our room, but we made it eventually. The bellman was very nice and taught us the whys and wherefores of staying in a luxury hotel:

1) A bottle of water is $20 on Friday and $25 on Saturday.

2) If you pick anything up from either the snack bar or the mini fridge, you have 10 seconds to put it back or you’ll be charged for it. The way they figure this out is that the surfaces contain pressure plates that register the change in weight. Seriously.

3) You aren’t allowed to store anything of your own in the mini bar. The aforementioned pressure plates are also utilized to determine extra weight as well as missing weight. This presented a problem for us because we had a full cooler of food that needed a home.

Needless to say, this will be our first and last time staying at The Bellagio….

We spent the rest of the day checking out the stores in and around the Bellagio, the beautiful flower display at the Conservatory, got some Starbucks, and walked to the Venetian among a cadre of insane people. It turned out that we had entered into The Twilight Zone because the brand new franchised hockey team called The Knights from Vegas were in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and every fool in the country was flooding into the city and drinking as much as humanly possible before the game (which was naturally taking place in Vegas….I mean of course it was, right?). They even put a jersey and hockey stick on Caesar in front of Caesar’s Palace Hotel!

Since we only had one more day left, we decided to eat more crap out of the cooler for dinner, packed our shipping boxes, and then watched Men in Black and Despicable Me simultaneously.  It was a rip roarin’ good time.

Day 21 - South Rim back to Williams

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Weather:  Sunny and high 70’s/low 80’s

Steps: Shaun - 14,814, Shannon - 11,889

Another perfect day in Arizona!  After checking out of the lodge and eating breakfast in the restaurant, we took the shuttle to the Grand Canyon Association bookstore and gift shop. Afterwards, we went to the actual Visitor’s Center where we watched an 8-minute presentation about the formation of the canyon that was projected onto a globe in the center of the room like a holograph. Holy crap...it was so cool! The rest of the Visitor’s Center was pretty uninteresting, but just the way the information we’d seen several times before was translated by projecting it onto the globe with time lapse photography made all the difference in the world.

We didn’t have to catch the train until 3:00, so we had plenty of time to explore the rest of the South Rim. Our first stop was Mather Point and then along the Rim Trail to Yavapai Point Observation Center and Geology Museum. The walk was only .7 miles, and the displays were interesting with a good explanation of the different rock layers in the Canyon.

Check out this insane example
of an overachieving yucca plant

Now for a little sidebar about the ubiquitous yucca plant. I will go on record as saying that I hate yuccas with the passion of 10,000 suns. I always have, and before this trip I would have said that I always will. However, after having learned about the incredible amount of uses that the Native Americans have for this one plant, I will admit to having a greater appreciation for it. I would still never have it in my yard, but I guess I won’t wish it off the face of the Earth anymore.

Mather Point with way too many f’in people!

After hopping back on the shuttle, we headed to Yaki Point and saw the incredible vistas from there.  We still needed to eat and check out El Tovar and Verkamp’s Visitor Center back in the center of Canyon Village, so we decided to skip going to the very end of the shuttle route and head back to the visitor center to get the shuttle back to the village (this being dependent on public transportation kind of sucks when you’re on a timeline).

We blasted through El Tovar (which was very cool but pretty high end for our sensibilities) and then to the Verkamp’s Visitor Center (which had more of the same stuff we’d seen in every visitor center around the rim). We really needed to eat at this point, so we went to the Bright Angel Lodge hoping to find something good, but we had to settle on the food at the luncheonette...starting with sherbet and sorbet first and then crap snack food for the actual lunch. It was WAY less than satisfying if I do say so.

We took our very last selfie of the Canyon as we were leaving and walked down to the train station.  We were able to board immediately, and it was a good thing because Shaun joined the upchuck club and got sick as soon as we arrived (verifying how very crappy our lunch had actually been). Once the train got moving, we had toasts with champagne and sparkling cider, petit fours, and chocolate covered strawberries. The entertainment was a banjo player (who was actually really good), and another stupid train robbery.

Once we arrived back at the depot, we were on our way to check into the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel when Shaun noticed our bag sitting there lost and all alone on the sidewalk. We had been told it would be delivered to our room, but we were misinformed and were lucky that the bag was unique enough to be noticeable.

Dinner was at the Railway Cafe that had a buffet that included a pasta station, so we had our fill and gelled for the rest of the night.

Day 20 - Williams to Grand Canyon National Park, South Rim

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Weather:  Sunny and high 60’s to low 70’s - perfection!

Steps: Shaun - 14,843, Shannon - 13,798

So I know this will come as a shocker, but there’s a bit of a story surrounding our reservation with the Grand Canyon Railway. Keep in mind that we booked this entire trip in July of 2017 for a May 2018 trip. This is pretty typical for us, and then we always verify all the arrangements a couple of months before the actual trip, just to make sure everything’s okay. For this trip, we chose to make our calls in March, and Shannon took the first half and I took the last half, and everything appeared to be okay (except for the aforementioned car rental situation where they wanted to charge us $400 to change our reservation by 2 hours...just sayin’). Anyway, the two of us happened to be together for Shannon’s birthday in March, and we decided to do a last check through everything. Luckily, Shan noticed that our confirmation info for the train was incomplete. We decided to call them to check everything out, and it’s really good that we did because not only was the reservation messed up but we hadn’t made arrangements for our luggage and we had no method of transportation other than the shuttle. Once we worked that out, the human on the phone also pointed out that there were packages set up specifically for train travelers to make their day at South Rim more efficient. The one we chose included lunch when we arrived at noon and then an evening bus ride to the best views of the sunset. The moral of the story is that it’s better to actually speak to a person rather than taking your chances with the internet. We don’t take this advice very often, but, in this case, if we hadn’t had to call to straighten out the reservation, we would have had to schlep our luggage all over God’s creation...on a shuttle, no less...and we’d have missed the chance to hear Amazing Grace played on a Navajo pipe by Shirley Struble’s doppelganger (more on that story later).

We spent the money for a glass-domed first class car on the train (that could only be accessed from the last car) named for Mary Colter who was the architect of the Watchtower and many buildings in and around the Grand Canyon. We were really excited to see the scenery, so after eating breakfast at a little café in town (bad idea), we drove to the train depot, left our luggage on the schlepping cart to be taken to Yavapai Lodge, and went inside to pick up our tickets, grab some tea (because the tea was awful from the café...note the foreshadowing we should have picked up on), and had our way with the gift shop.

Once we boarded the train, we got a bit to eat and drink (since they were included in our ticket price) and sat back to enjoy the 90-minute ride. Within about 10 minutes, though, Shannon was looking a bit green. She tried drinking some ginger ale, but she just got worse and worse until she finally had to avail herself of the facilities. Despite emptying her stomach, Shannon still felt horrible, so she ended up going downstairs and curling up on the couch down there. The nice stewards gave her ginger ale, bitters, and two blankets, and she missed the horrible train robbery skit and the photo op the train provided. Shaun stayed upstairs and read and listened to the banjo guy playing sing-along songs.

There wasn’t a lot of wildlife hanging around the tracks, but we did see a coyote cruising across a field, so that was pretty cool. The best part of the journey were the stewards though. There was a man who was a lifelong resident of the area, and we even got to see his home from the train. The woman steward was very personable, and she did a great job getting everyone involved in the entertainment by singing along, dancing in the aisles, and making sure everyone had food and drinks every inch of the way. They made sure we all knew where to go and what to do once we arrived, and they offered up their own tourist books for folks to read on the trip. With the exception of the whole puking thing, it was a great trip!

When we got off the train, we had to decide what to do about whatever was making Shan sick, so we decided to walk to the clinic since it wasn’t on the shuttle route. Little did we know that it was almost 2 miles away, so it was a really miserable trip. We did see a woodpecker and an Abert squirrel along the way, so that was something. An Abert squirrel is a unique squirrel species from the area that has tufts of hair coming out of their ears, and they’re super cute.

Once we got to the clinic, they tested her pulse oxygen thinking that she was suffering from either elevation sickness or dehydration. To make a VERY long story short, the consensus was that she had gotten food poisoning from the bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich she got from the café in Williams (the venue of the crappy tea). They gave her an anti-nausea pill and sent us on our way.  Luckily, one of the nurses called a car to take us back to the rim and to the restaurant where we had to eat lunch by 2:00 as part of our package at Bright Angel Lodge. We got picked up at 1:45, so we made it...barely. Of course, Shan didn’t eat a whole lot, but she did feel better once she got some non-toxic food in her.

The only documentation we have of this long, sad story are these two pictures from the clinic believe it or not.  Aren’t they pretty?

Ok, back to our regularly scheduled day at the South Rim....we had a few hours before the bus trip began at 5:00, so we walked along the South Rim and the Bright Angel Trailhead and saw the main buildings in that part of the park. This included the El Toro Hotel (which was designed by the same person who designed the Riordan House that we toured in Flagstaff) and a couple more of Mary Colter’s creations: Bright Angel Lodge, where we had lunch, Hopi House, Hermits Rest, and Kolb and Lookout Studio. We saw an interesting exhibit about the Kolb brothers at the studio and wished we were independently wealthy so that we could buy a glorious piece of art we found there.

A cool wildlife moment happened as we were gazing into the canyon from Lookout Studio...there was a teeny tiny hummingbird feeding on the persimmon below the wall, and he was so cute!  Along came a bigger one who tried to bully him out of the way, but the little fellow wasn’t having any of that crap and drove the big guy away. Even in nature, bullies never win!

Lookout Studio: 

Bright Angel Lodge

View from start of Bright Angel Trail

Phantom Ranch

Once our time was up, we caught the shuttle to Maswik Lodge to catch the Hermit’s Rest Sunset Tour. It turned out the tour used one of the big buses, but there were only 19 of us, so we had lots of room to spread out. We also met up with many of the people we had met on the train, and they all asked after Shannon’s welfare, which was really nice.

As I mentioned before, the tour guide was a very unique woman who reminded us so much of Shirley Struble. She was full of great stories and information on the geology, history, and people of the area. She was the first person to give us an understanding of why the national parks we had seen looked so different from each other even though they were located relatively near each other. She said it was all a matter of the timeframe exposed in the rocks:

1) Bryce Canyon is the youngest park, so the rock exposed is the highest in elevation at almost 10,000 feet above sea level.  The bottom of Bryce Canyon is the top of Zion.

2) Zion is the next youngest, and the bottom of Zion is the top of the Grand Canyon.

3) The Grand Canyon is the oldest, and the bottom of the Grand Canyon contains the oldest exposed rock in the world.

Interesting huh? The other piece of the pie is that all the area in the Colorado Plateau was once the bottom of the ocean, and you can find placed all along the rim where fossils are revealed to tell the story. Pseudo Shirley took us to a couple of examples on the rim, and she also cautioned us to never go out beyond the safety barrier because the sandstone is just waiting to fall beyond it. In her opinion, when it happens, it’s not going to be a small crumble...she pointed out cracks and fissures all over the area to illustrate where the break will happen. She definitely made an impression, not only with her wealth of information but also with her practical application of that knowledge.

Bus driver who reminded us of Shirley Struble:

While perusing the fossils, we noticed that the people in the group weren’t paying attention to the guide but looking in the opposite direction. She finally caught on to the fact that there was a pregnant elk grazing in the trees about 25 yards away. She cautioned everyone to stay back because elk are very unpredictable, and a pregnant one is even more dangerous, so we all took our pictures and left her to her dinner. We also saw some mule deer, but after the pregnant elk, the deer were much less exciting.

The bus stopped at a couple overlooks of the canyon before arriving at the end of the line at Hermit’s Rest.  This was a seriously cool Mary Colter production, and we had cookies, tea, hot chocolate, and an intimate relation with a raven.  Ravens were a ubiquitous presence throughout this whole trip, so we decided to honor this one with a photographic gallery.

Hermits Rest

Sunset

After our bus tour was over, we were delivered back to Maswik Lodge where we had to wait quite a while for the shuttle to come to take us to our room at Yavapai. Once the sun set, it got cold quickly, and I was really uncomfortable. Luckily, the shuttle came eventually and dropped us right at the lodge, so we checked in and ate dinner at the buffet in the restaurant. It was a short hike to our cabin, but it was dead dark and we had no idea where we were going, so it was quite an adventure. Luckily, our luggage had indeed been delivered to the room, so we basically collapsed in a heap and went to bed early.