The Millers Go RVing - Day 9 & 10

After our late night, we slept in. Or we tried to. We were now several time zones away from home and for some of us our bodies were doing a bright, cheery "It's morning!" at 5am. Is that what you call RV lag? We lounged around longer than usual. R. fixed the microwave, which had burned out the first time we tried to use it on the trip. Fortunately, he's handy that way. We all used the Wi-Fi while we had a rare fast connection.

We arrived in the Grand Canyon area of AZ around 3pm. We got checked into the campground, which turned out to be an old, run-down one; the lady in the office said the owners are going to shut it down at the end of the season and are not spending any more money on repairs. She said we could only run 1 a/c unit at a time or it would blow out the whole row of electrical hookups... the Wi-Fi was pitifully slow... there was an extra charge to use everything from the showers to the dump station. But it was do-able for 1 night, and the location was its redeeming factor.
We were getting settled in when there was a knock on our motorhome door. "You have a flood out here!" To our chagrin, the valve to fill the water tank had been turned wide open, instead of closed, when we left the previous campground. When we hooked up to the water at this campground, we didn't catch it and the tank filled... then overflowed! Our own personal waterfalls in arid AZ. Oops! With the a/c running, we couldn't hear it from inside, but it had apparently been overflowing for awhile judging by the puddle on the ground. Some fellow-RVers good-naturedly teased us but admitted the same thing happened to them once. At least we didn't get billed a water- wasting fee. And the inside flooding was minimal; a fan had the back corner dried up in a jiffy.

We browsed through the Visitor's Center, then caught the shuttle to the Canyon. We went right by a large "400" bull elk; our bus driver pointed it out but didn't stop for pictures. We saw a lot of cows & calves, but no more bulls after that.
It's surreal to take that first glimpse of the Grand Canyon. You hear about how vast it is and see pictures, but to really see it in person! I almost had to pinch myself to believe I was really there.   

Not to be a broken record, but pictures really do not do justice to this place.

We took the orange shuttle line out to Yaki Point for sunset. The Canyon isn't very colorful  when its overcast, but with some patience, the sun came out from behind the clouds and lit it up.

We had some divided opinions about whether food or watching the sunset was more important. We took the shuttle back to the visitors center where those voting for food waited on the benches at the bus stop, while those voting for sunset went back to Mather Point. It was gorgeous!

 Every time you would think the sky was at its peak beauty, it would become even more colorful.

At 8pm we finally tore ourselves away for the sake of our starving family members and shuttled back to town. We had planned to bake pizzas in the motorhome, but since it was so late we walked to Wendys instead. It was crowded with tourists like us that had been watching the sunset, so it wasn't very fast food.

The next morning we wanted to catch the first shuttle and get started hiking the Grand Canyon before it gets so hot. But someone was less than enthusiastic about participating, so we missed the 1st shuttle. It was almost 9 till we shuttled to the main visitors center, then we had to catch the blue line and ride it to the end of the line yet to get to Bright Angel trail. So it was 9:30 till we got started.

 

We started with intentions of going to the 1.5 mi rest area. But the farther we went, the more some of us started having 2nd thoughts. It goes down, down, down, which is easy enough, but you start wondering how all that up, up, up is going to go. You pass scores of people on the way up who are sweating profusely and breathing hard. I mean it is 100* after all. We ask some English-speaking* hikers how far it is yet and they said we are halfway. Only?! We had a family pow-wow and had to work out a compromise. We went to the Lower Tunnel but then turned around and headed back up.

*We were surprised to find the Grand Canyon is a modern day Tower Of Babel. The majority of the tourists were foreigners, jabbering away in every language imaginable. To find other English speaking tourists was almost a novelty!

The thin air of the west didn't bother us until this hike. A was the only one of our family that was unaffected; she could've easy done the 1.5 mi but not the rest of us. The rest of us would hike a short stretch, then step off the path into the shade and rest until we caught our breath. R & I had trouble with our heart racing. We're getting too old for this stuff!

                           

So we hiked 1.6 mile of the Grand Canyon (round trip), which they claim is the equivalent of 59 flights of stairs. To my great surprise, when we got back to the trailhead it was only 10:30am! It seemed like we had been hiking for hours, not 1 hour.
There were spigots to fill water bottles at the trailhead. It was advertised as spring water, but it definitely was not. A big disappointment to us.
We shuttled back to town. We were in the mood for ice cream after that hot hike, so we popped into [undisclosed fast food]. Instead of the 99 cent sundaes we are used to, the price was $3.49!

Next we drove to Kingman AZ. We went in the Rt. 66 Museum to get our Rt. 66 passport stamped. We were in a number of other locations on the passport but not during business hours, so this was the only stamp we collected on the trip. We went to Mr. D'z Rt. 66 Diner.

 If you are into diners, this one is worth your time.

 

 Great food, too.

JS missed out! I bet you can't guess who he stayed out in the RV in the blazing 104* heat to talk to. It's officially true- love makes you do crazy things.

We had intended to drive on down the street to the church where Clark Gable got married, but completely forgot.

We had been advised to fuel up in Kingman before we hit the higher prices of NV & CA. R pulled up to the pump and went inside to pre-pay. Because Big Bertha's parking brake didn't work, we had to either chock the wheels or someone sit in the driver's seat with their foot on the brake every time we'd stop. This was one of those occasions when yours truly was the lucky one sitting in the driver's seat. A pickup truck who was parked at the convenience store chose this moment to be in a hurry to leave. But alas, Big Bertha had him parked in. He honked the horn. Now yours truly does not drive Big Bertha. Not even a little tiny bit. (I'm sure I could give Robin Williams of "RV" some driving competition.) The man in the pickup does not know this and sees a crazy lady in the drivers seat who refuses to move. He honks again.  And again. I chased JS off the phone to come move Big Bertha before the man gets any angrier. JS backs Big Bertha out of the way and snooty pickup man drives away without so much as a thank you wave. R chooses this moment to come sauntering out and start pumping gas; he was totally unconcerned by the near road-rage disaster averted -"they'll get over it". Well, I for one do not like to be honked at.

We drove to Boulder City NV to our next RV park. It was a very nice park, but we had to climb a very long, steep hill in 107* heat to get to it. The needle on Big Bertha's transmission temperature gauge kept climbing and our worry meter kept edging up along with it. Come on, Big Bertha, you can do it! Almost there! It makes you wish you could do something to help- like pedal, or get out & walk, or start throwing cargo overboard to lighten the load. We were crawling till we got to the top, but we made it. A huge relief. 

In spite of the sweltering heat, the pool was empty. So our family made use of it. All except JS, who was on the phone. Again. :) Surprisingly, laundry was only $1 per load here -lowest price of the trip- so we decided to do as much as we could. Even at 11pm, carrying stacks of laundry back to the RV from the laundry room, the heat was just rising in waves off the pavement. Nevada, we will never forget your extreme heat!

to be continued...