Day 7: Tuesday 7th September

I develop a cough - but who cares! The Grand Canyon!

Woke early, feeling lousy! My cold had developed into a tight chest, with accompanying cough. And I couldn't cough; it hurt my ribs!! So, we checked out of the Hyatt and headed for the Safeway and bought salads for lunch, a bottle of Robitussin DM for the cough and 16 large cookies!!

We then turned off to Oak Creek Canyon - and wasted rather a lot of time searching for Red Rock car permits, stopping off at Don Hoel's Cabins to ask, where we could purchase one - turning back along the canyon road a mile or so - and then finding out that we didn't need one anyway, when we stopped for the view at the top!!

There were indian stalls up there, lots and lots of trees and toilets with eternity holes. I'm not sure about Oak Creek Canyon. Everybody makes it out to be such a gem of a road/drive. It's fine, don't get me wrong - but I wouldn't separate it out as anything spectacular. It could've been the Yelverton to Tavistock road, for all you could see of views from the road. There were far more splendid routes on our trip.

So, we were in Flagstaff. I must say that I rather liked what I saw of the town, as we circled it several times, looking Route 180. It's old-fashioned, I guess - as these towns go - but there was something quite charming about it. I had really wanted to stop at Sunset Crater, but we were running a bit late and it was a few miles out of our way. We did drive up to the Lowell Observatory, but we didn't feel that we should fork out on entrance fees and a tour, as it really would've been wasted.

A little further along the road (gloriously surrounded by the lovely San Francisco Peaks), we stopped at Museum of Northern Arizona, as we really needed the bathroom!! But we had a quick look around and all was very interesting, with exhibits including geology and indian arts.

(spotted on back of car in car park)

We then had our picnic lunch on the tables under the trees ... with the squirrels - then continued on our way, along this most restful route, turning off at route 64 and arriving, in seemingly no time at all, at the gates of Grand Canyon National Park.

I kept catching glances ("ooh") through the trees, of the canyon, over there to the right. "Do we want to have a look now, before going to our hotel?" "GOOD IDEA"!! So we turned off and parked at Yavapai Point. Wow! I was afraid I might be disappointed in it (as Dad said he was) - but not a bit of it!

(click for bigger pics)

great shot of squirrel

I wished Paul had kept a bit further away from the edge, because it made my feet buzz! What a drop!! Had a quick look around the Visitor Center and gift shop - and Paul bought me a 2005 Grand Canyon Calendar and a lovely book of GC postcards, for my birthday! Then we drove along the rim, and turned off to the Village, stopping outside the El Tovar Hotel, where Paul and I went into the impressive lobby to check into the Kachina Lodge (the Kachina having no check-in of its own), while hub drove around in circles (there was nowhere to park!). After checking in and getting the keys to our room, we did manage to find a parking spot, not too far away, and went to our room.

WOW!

They said we'd have a view - but WHAT a view!!!

The above photo is of the actual view from our lodge room window! (click for bigger). The room itself was more than adequate - quite comfortable, in fact - but that view! Surely it has to be one of the best hotel views in the world!

And here's me, down by the rim, in front of that same view! Magic!

We then sauntered around for a while and walked towards the restaurants, to get something to eat, watching the sun set over the Canyon, as we went.

(must) click for bigger

We plumped for the Bright Angel Lodge restaurant and were ushered to comfy seats. I don't remember what we had to eat!! (Except bets are on that Paul had a burger of sorts .... ) - but I remember that the waiter was extremely jolly and that the fluids man was extremely morose, though he dumped us each a huge glass of (wonderful) iced water!

After dinner, we went back to our room and, well, just relaxed! The TV was on, of course. We had been following the hurricane stories on the Weather Channel. We were worried about Frank. Frank is a work colleague of the hub's, who was also on his first trip to the USA. He had gone to the eastern states - and it seemed was having plenty of wet weather as a consequence of hurricane Frances and her chums. We hoped it wasn't too bad for him. American television is, in truth, absolutely terrible. The adverts spoil everything - and they're not even good adverts. I was wondering where PBS was. That is a commercial-free channel, which shows mainly BBC reruns - and lots of documentaries. I knew it existed - I had a link to their website and had actually used one of their pages as a reference in my last piece of OU work. But where was it? Certainly it wasn't on any of the satellite channels - and we didn't appear to have access (anywhere) to anything else but.

We went to sleep beside the Grand Canyon.

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[ Introduction ] [ Day 1 ] [ Day 2 ] [ Day 3 ] [ Day 4 ] [ Day 5 ] [ Day 6 ] [ Day 8 ] [ Day 9 ]
[ Day 10 ] [ Day 11 ] [ Day 12 ] [ Day 13 ] [ Day 14 ] [ Day 15 ] [ Day 16 ] [ Day 17 ]
[ Days 18, 19 and 20 ]

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