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.

Day 19 - Flagstaff to Walnut Canyon to Williams, AZ

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Weather:  Sunny and mid-70’s - YAY!

Steps: Shaun - 12,969, Shannon - 10,782

We had a noon appointment to fly over the Grand Canyon which was about 90 minutes away, but we just HAD to see one more ruin near Flagstaff so we were up and out with the sun and arrived at the Walnut Canyon National Monument before it opened. We started like we always did, at the Visitor’s Center, and we watched an interesting movie with very dramatic (and distracting) music about the history of the canyon and the people who lived there, called the Sinagua. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to hike down into the canyon and walk among the ruins, but we walked the Rim Trail and got a good overview of the insane way these people lived over 800 years ago.

The rugged terrain in the Flagstaff, Arizona area was home to the Ancestral Puebloans from whom the present day Hopi are descended. Known by their descendants as Hisatsinom, meaning people of long ago, the Hopi ancestors lived in this region for more than 800 years (from 600 until 1400 CE). Although they were not the first to inhabit the Flagstaff area, the Hopi ancestors were the first residents to establish permanent dwellings in a 20-miles long, 400-feet deep, and ¼-mile wide canyon. It was a very worthwhile stop.

I don’t know if it's been said yet, but the Grand Canyon was our #1 priority on this trip because Shannon had never been there. When we were deciding what excursion-type arrangements needed to be made ahead of time, we considered whether we should splurge on a helicopter trip or not, and of course Shaun’s answer was “hell yes, it’s only money!”  After doing our obligatory research, we decided to go with Maverick Helicopters, which turned out to be a great choice.

We arrived 45 minutes early, so we were able to see other copters arriving from the ground, which was cool for us uninitiated flyers. The lodge/hanger complex was very comfortable and run like a well oiled machine. Our pilot was named Daniel, and we rode with 4 other people; Daniel and 3 others in the front and then Shaun, Shan, an empty seat, and a very large man in the back. Daniel was pretty young but had a classic rock sensibility, and he had created an awesome playlist for our ride. As we lifted off, we turned right (away from the canyon) to get a running start with the theme from the old Batman series playing in our headsets. It was the perfect song!

We were a few miles from the canyon, so Daniel used the time to give us a heads up about most people’s reaction to going over the edge of the canyon since it typically freaked people out when they went from 100 feet above the ground to a mile above the ground in 10 seconds. He cautioned us that any swearing and screaming like girls would be preserved for posterity on the trip CD. He was definitely a crack-up (in a reserved kind of way). I will admit that that first drop-off was my favorite part of an absolutely amazing trip.

Here’s the sequence as best as I could capture it:

The trip was a total of 45 minutes, and we got to see places we had been, like the east side of the South Rim (on 5/19, with the Watchtower) and the North Rim (on 5/18) from the air, plus new sights, like the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers. Shaun really liked this part of the trip because the color of the water was really weird coming in from the Little Colorado such that it looked white against the blue/green of the (big) Colorado. Check it out:    

Once we’d cruised through the south side of the canyon, we flew over the rim and thought the trip was done. To our great surprise, we were just changing directions and flying over the North Rim, which is very different in geology from the South Rim, partly because it’s a much higher elevation but also because it receives a much higher rainfall so it's greener. Daniel said it was actually his favorite part of the canyon.

By the time we got back to the airport, we had been serenaded with Danger Zone, Mission Impossible, Magic Carpet Ride, Indiana Jones, Sultans of Swing, Jurassic Park, and Wanted Dead or Alive. It was awesome! We’re so glad we took the time and spent the money to see the Grand Canyon in such a special way. It was a fortuitous accident that we had seen the North Rim and the Eastern side of the South Rim before we flew over it because it was familiar yet brand new in the best way. I will say that there was a bit of shimmy shaking both on the way out and back from the canyon, so both Shan and I felt a little sick, but there was no pukage, so we called that a win!

Once back at the terminal, we checked out our picture with Daniel and of course decided to buy it.  We also bought the DVD so that we could re-live the experience over and over since it was so awesome, and we were able to share it with family and friends once we got home as well.

We were absolutely starving, so we went to lunch right outside the park at a pizza/pasta place that was pretty good. Next up was the National Geographic Visitor Center where we saw an IMAX movie about the history of the Grand Canyon.  It was a bit hokey, but there were beautiful visuals and a fun 1st-person view of the rapids taken from a helicopter flying really low that we loved.  The store was also very cool, and I bought a fry cake mix so that I could re-live the beloved treats we’d enjoyed so much in the Navajo Nation. I even got inside tips from a Navajo women for the way her grandmother and mother cooked fry cakes. It was a very worthwhile stop.

Next we headed south to Williams, Arizona where we would stay the night tonight, get on a train back to the South Rim tomorrow, and then take the train back down to Williams the following day and spend the night at the hotel run by the train folks. Williams is a very “Route 66”-centric place, and the hotel we stayed in was a significant step down from the beautiful AirBNB in Flagstaff. Luckily, it was for only one night because we had to climb over the bed to get to the bathroom!

We were really excited to visit a “Native American Art Gallery” in town (and hanging out in the dismal room wasn’t an option), so we headed down Route 66 on foot and checked out the kitschy shops along the way.  We ate a wonderful dinner at a place recommended by our travel book called Red Raven Bistro, were disappointed beyond belief by the art gallery (which was really just another in a long line of kitsch shops), and found a wonderful local artist shop. We loved so many things there, but we ended up behaving ourselves, and all we bought was a very unusual painting of a blue-eyed lynx for Shannon. The town definitely came alive after dark with its preponderance of neon lights up and down the main drag. It was actually a pretty cool place, but one day there was plenty.

Since we were taking the train the next day, we had to reconnoiter our luggage so that we only took what we’d need for two days. We’d have to leave the rest of our stuff in the car in the lot at the depot, so we spread everything out in our tiny room and got ‘er done.