Sorry for missing so many days. We’ve been busy exploring the Grand Canyon, you know!
Before we get into the details, we think we should make this known. BGR wants a helicopter. Like we REALLY want our own helicopter. If you’d like to contribute, please send money via Paypal. Contact us at battlegoat@battlegoatracing.com for details. Thanks!
Now on to our report…
Day 32…
… was about getting from Zion National Park to Grand Canyon National Park, starting with its North Rim. If you recall from our last update, we said we would be driving through Zion again. We lied. Our route bypassed Zion to give us an entirely different picture of Utah. Would you believe flat and grassy? Almost prairie-like.
It was a pretty drive with light traffic that took us into Kaibab National Forest, which appears to surround Grand Canyon National Park. Driving through this forest, we were struck by its… err… limited impressiveness. Then we reflected that this many trees, in the context of Utah, is probably noteworthy, regardless of how it stands up to Canada’s tree density. Our apologies to the good people of Utah.
As we approached the North Rim, we were again surprised by the environment. It was forested, with sections of grassy plains, not the desert-like the conditions we had expected. We were also surprised by the evidence of recent and not-so-recent forest fires in the area.
The biggest surprise however, was the small herd of bison sitting on the roadside just inside the park gate. They were calmly grazing, unconcerned by the 10 or so cars parked within 20 feet of them. Pretty exciting to see such large animals in the wild. We captured some video, but no time edit and post right now.
From the gate, it was several more miles to the North Rim, which has much less development than the South Rim, and much smaller crowds, making getting up close and personal much easier.
I might have gone on some ledges that would not be approved by Trish or my mom to get some photos. Don’t tell, OK?
After a couple hours of exploring, staring in amazement, and being winded by the altitude, we had lunch in the lodge and took off for the South Rim. On the way there, the topography continued to change.
First, we hit the Vermillion Cliffs region, which was stunning to behold and presented some oddities.
The road through this region was good fun. Undulating, narrow, and relatively straight, aside from the odd turn that wasn’t. We might have exceeded the posted speed limit by a notable margin on a few occasions. 🙂
As we approached the South Rim, things changed again. The colours became much more muted and the rock formations began to shrink in stature. In some places, it seemed that humans had simply mounded gravel, but obviously this was not the case.
We eventually got to the park and looked around for a while before heading to the town of Williams, another 54 miles away, for the night.
Day 33
Helicopter!!! Yes, we did a helicopter tour as so many of our friends suggested. I wanted to skydive like Meg suggested, but T was less interested in that.
Our tour was 40 minutes and covered both rims. To say it was amazing would be a massive understatement. We were both blown away by the Canyon and how it looks from above. Here are some of the photos we took. Note that it was challenging to get reflection-free images through the chopper’s windows so some contrast loss appears. There might be too many photos here, but they all make us excited, so we’re posting them. 😛
We had some time after the helitour, so we did a bit of driving around the area to see some terrain we had only traversed in the dark. The skies were interesting, with a storm on the horizon.
As part of the helicopter tour package, we got a “Sunset Tour” in a Hummer from Buckwild Tours. While it was a good time, it was a bit redundant for us given how much of the park we had already visited in our own car. I guess we had expected a more “off-road” tour, which was a stupid expectation given one can’t drive anything, not even a Hummer, into the Canyon. Here are some photos from ground level at the rim, about 7,000 feet above sea level.
We ended our evening by hustling to Flagstaff for the night, where we stayed at the Hampton Inn & Suites Flagstaff East. The staff at this hotel, specifically Lexi, Amanda, and their Manager, were fantastic help when our credit card gave us some problems. On top of that, the room was amazingly spacious, well appointed, and had all the modern amenities we tech-obsessed travellers require.
Day 34
Today (August 29) was to be a travel day, ending in Show Low, AZ, and how does one start their day right? With Chocolate Waffles, of course!
A kid making himself some at same time went the extra mile and topped his with whipped cream and chocolate sauce.
Hitting the road, we followed a route we found online. It made the trip much longer than necessary, but the drive was amazing. It even featured some time on Route 66!
We ended up going far enough south that the trees gave way to some impressive cacti!
This one here stood out for its lack of appendages and rather small stature. We called him Small Lonely Carl.
The water you you behind Carl is Lake Roosevelt, which seems to be the reservoir for a dam, much like Lake Mead is to the Hoover Dam. Along the way, here were some sights.
If you’ve been following these reports since the beginning, you might recall that we got some rain on Day 1. Since then, we’ve had a dry spell, but that was broken today when we remembered how much we missed seeing clouds and rain.
We only saw some drizzle, but could see the lightning and the heavy rain in the distance before finding wet roads from which steam was rising.
Eventually, we got into Show Low to find that our motel, KC Motel, is located on this street.
Gotta wonder what they were thinking. Then again, this is a town where the Dairy Queen is the second highest-rated dining establishment. We opted for the number one spot, a Mexican joint across the street from the motel called Los Corrales. And to bring us full circle on the day, here’s a photo of me and our dinner.
That’s it. We’re caught up! Tomorrow is another travel day that will take us to El Paso.