Arizona Adventures:
The westward travel continues, we left New Mexico behind and made our way into Arizona. We stopped our first night in Windslow, “boon docking” (staying in a parking lot) behind a McDonalds with many other gypsies; truckers and the like. After a short drive in the morning we arrived in Flagstaff. We explored the interesting old down town and spent the afternoon and evening at the Lowell Observatory, where Pluto (formally the planet) was discovered. They had an informative tour of the telescope and some of the equipment actually used in the discovery. That night we waited to see the evening show, but clouds sort of limited the visibility.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011, day # 81 of our Southern Safari we made our way to Williams, AZ. Here we had our trip to the Grand Canyon scheduled. We arrived mid morning and got camp set up, ran a few errands and got ourselves ready for our next days’ adventures. Early Wednesday morning we walked the “Boys” over to the Grand Canyon Railway Kennel, where they spent the night while “Mom & Dad” were off playing. The trip started with a Wild West Show out in an open arena, unfortunately, the weather was rainy, windy and cool, so standing and watching was chilly and when they called to board the train we all were ready to get inside. We had nice seats with big windows to watch the 65 miles of old west territory, including high desert plains, endless vistas, and portions of the world’s largest ponderosa pine forest. We sat back and enjoyed the scenery. During the 2 + hour ride we had snacks, beverages and western entertainment. The train arrived at the canyon right about noon, we were met by a bus, that took us to lunch and then on a driving tour of the south rim, we got off and took quick looks at the amazing views, but were anxious to get back on board and out of the wind and rain. We got to our little cabin at the Bright Angel Lodge about 3:30pm and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening taking walks along the rim, and exploring the historic buildings along the rim village. When we went to bed it was trying to snow and we were pleasantly surprised with a light dusting of fresh snow the next morning. We got up and were walking along the canyon rim by about 7:00am; the sun was peeking through the clouds and giving us an incredible morning lighting of the canyon. It was almost too beautiful to capture, but we did our part by taking 100s of pictures between our two cameras. But the best was yet to come. After a great brunch at the gorgeous old El Tovar Restaurant, we went out to the airport for our helicopter flight over the canyon.
AMAZING, FANTASTIC, INCREDIBLE: Mike and I are fans of helicopter tours, this one did not disappoint, it simply took our breaths away, we flew for 45 minutes over the Kaibab National Forest and over and in canyon, what a way to see something so spectacular. Really had to pinch ourselves to believe that what we were seeing was real and not one of the many pictures one sees. We were so lucky, because the weather had really improved, a few clouds and bit of wind, but it only seemed to add to sights we saw. After the flight we returned to train depot and caught the train back to Williams; this definitely was the way to see the Grand Canyon. This was definitely one of our top ten adventures of this trip so far.
The westward travel continues, we left New Mexico behind and made our way into Arizona. We stopped our first night in Windslow, “boon docking” (staying in a parking lot) behind a McDonalds with many other gypsies; truckers and the like. After a short drive in the morning we arrived in Flagstaff. We explored the interesting old down town and spent the afternoon and evening at the Lowell Observatory, where Pluto (formally the planet) was discovered. They had an informative tour of the telescope and some of the equipment actually used in the discovery. That night we waited to see the evening show, but clouds sort of limited the visibility.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011, day # 81 of our Southern Safari we made our way to Williams, AZ. Here we had our trip to the Grand Canyon scheduled. We arrived mid morning and got camp set up, ran a few errands and got ourselves ready for our next days’ adventures. Early Wednesday morning we walked the “Boys” over to the Grand Canyon Railway Kennel, where they spent the night while “Mom & Dad” were off playing. The trip started with a Wild West Show out in an open arena, unfortunately, the weather was rainy, windy and cool, so standing and watching was chilly and when they called to board the train we all were ready to get inside. We had nice seats with big windows to watch the 65 miles of old west territory, including high desert plains, endless vistas, and portions of the world’s largest ponderosa pine forest. We sat back and enjoyed the scenery. During the 2 + hour ride we had snacks, beverages and western entertainment. The train arrived at the canyon right about noon, we were met by a bus, that took us to lunch and then on a driving tour of the south rim, we got off and took quick looks at the amazing views, but were anxious to get back on board and out of the wind and rain. We got to our little cabin at the Bright Angel Lodge about 3:30pm and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening taking walks along the rim, and exploring the historic buildings along the rim village. When we went to bed it was trying to snow and we were pleasantly surprised with a light dusting of fresh snow the next morning. We got up and were walking along the canyon rim by about 7:00am; the sun was peeking through the clouds and giving us an incredible morning lighting of the canyon. It was almost too beautiful to capture, but we did our part by taking 100s of pictures between our two cameras. But the best was yet to come. After a great brunch at the gorgeous old El Tovar Restaurant, we went out to the airport for our helicopter flight over the canyon.
AMAZING, FANTASTIC, INCREDIBLE: Mike and I are fans of helicopter tours, this one did not disappoint, it simply took our breaths away, we flew for 45 minutes over the Kaibab National Forest and over and in canyon, what a way to see something so spectacular. Really had to pinch ourselves to believe that what we were seeing was real and not one of the many pictures one sees. We were so lucky, because the weather had really improved, a few clouds and bit of wind, but it only seemed to add to sights we saw. After the flight we returned to train depot and caught the train back to Williams; this definitely was the way to see the Grand Canyon. This was definitely one of our top ten adventures of this trip so far.
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