Grand Canyon and Winslow Arizona

September 29 and 30, 2008
We got an early start Monday morning, so excited about seeing the Grand Canyon! We finally got out of the desert and began to see more and more vegetation and conifers. We decided at the last minute to top off our gas in case we got up there and wanted to make side trips. We rolled into the first station we found and were pleasantly surprised that although the pumps were self service, a service man appeared to wash the windshield and check the oil, water, tires, etc. They were a full service station with mechanics, the whole nine yards. Just like the old days. Well, we were on Route 66 after all and the town of Williams has kept is frontier charm and there are at least 100 bars within a 12 block area. Curious. Anyway, our friendly service man pointed out that our tires were starting to come apart!!! Yikes!!! We have over 62,000 miles on the Xterra and the original tires were on it and we had been traveling at 70 mph in the desert for a couple of days. Thank God we stopped there. He got us back on the road in 45 minutes with new tires and a new sense of just how harsh the conditions are out here. We headed north to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, approximately 50 miles away. We passed by ranch after ranch of sheep and actually saw a herd being shorn. Too cool. We arrived at Tuscayan, AZ, which is just outside the park and found the Red Feather Inn and snagged the last King Suite for Monday night and learned that the wireless internet service is so slow that we decided to wait until we got to a larger venue to post this blog entry and the pictures from Vegas, the Mojave Desert and the pix from the Grand Canyon. We took off again and got to the Canyon about 2:00 or so and let me tell you, the pictures, videos, movies or whatever that you have seen are not anything to compare to the real thing. It is surreal and beautiful, and amazing and astounding, and all other adjectives that describe nature at its best. We ate lunch at the Angel Lodge Restaurant which is right on the rim of the canyon. We toured the history museum and here is the scoop. A certain Fred Harvey came to the canyon in the late 1800s and realized that tourism would be more lucrative than gold or silver mining and built the first Angel Lodge. His family more or less had a monopoly on the tourism trade until the 1930s when others came in to get a piece of the action. Harvey hired Mary Colter, a female architect (almost unheard of in the day) to renovate the lodge and design other structures for the area. She combined the Indian heritage and the forest scenario in her designs and the structures remain as she designed them over 70 years ago! The Lookout Lodge is on the precipice of the rim and the Rangers give lectures on the Condors and their habitat, one of which is the grand canyon. We were just looking out over the grandeur when all of a sudden this spotted squirrel came within inches of my left arm! Scared the bejesus out of me. I was able to get pretty close to the edge where there were retaining walls or fences, but there were some areas where my vertigo basically paralyzed me and I just waited on John to finish his look see over the edge. The people that we encountered on our trek around the rim were from almost every nation in the world. I heard French, German, Russian, Asian of different regions, British English, Spanish and of course English. Everyone was as one in the awe and almost spiritual feel of the area. It was very cool. On our way out of the park we spotted a couple of mule deer. Oh yeah, we saw another dead coyote by the side of the road.
Okay, so I get up Tuesday a.m. and go to breakfast as usual and I encountered some of the people who were at the Canyon; German, Russian, French, Asian, British and Spanish visitors to our nation. It was a totally different feel in the room from what I had experienced on Monday. It was as if I wasn’t in the room at all because they pushed, shoved and broke line and basically showed me a very rude side to their personalities which disheartened me and brought me totally down. I had this warm and fuzzy feeling yesterday as if we were all as one and our diversity vanished. So much for warm and fuzzy. Reality sunk in! We decided not to stay another night there and set our sights on Route 66 and Winslow, Arizona! I wore my Eagles T-Shirt for the occasion as we sped as fast as we could to make it to Albuquerque by day’s end. We did stop in Winslow and again at the Continental Divide where we celebrated with a Nutty Buddy. We haven’t eaten ice cream in decades, but it was just right for that moment. The scenery changed from forest to red mesas and adobe homes of the Pueblo Indians. The store we stopped in for the ice cream was on the Navaho Nation Reservation which also sported a 10-story hotel and casino. The women that we encountered on the reservation were so sweet and polite and were genuinely appreciative when we thanked them for something. I guess some of those “ferriners” had preceded us. We did get to Albuquerque and plan on driving up to Santa Fe on Wednesday to meet Darwin for lunch. I spoke with him on the phone and he sounded just great and actually wanted us to spend the night with he and I think he said Haley, his girlfriend. We aren’t going to stay over there as we want to turn around and try to make El Paso by Wednesday evening, take a picture of the Mexican border and then head home. We need to be back at least by October 8, 2008 as that’s when the post office will stop holding our mail!