Day 5 Week 1

Got on my way at 10.00am this morning. I was hardly on the road heading for Flagstaff when it started to sleet. Within minutes it turned to snow. As I approached Flagstaff it turned into a full blown blizzard. Visibility was down to 50 or 60 metres in parts and it was getting a bit hairy. I couldn’t slow down on the Interstate because no one else was and I would have been collected for sure. I was sitting along with traffic on the speed limit of 75 mph (120 kph) and cars were overtaking me.

Travelling through Flagstaff, I heard on the radio that the road to Williams (which happened to be where I was heading) was closed due to snow and ice. I didn’t have many options at hand so I pushed on. I thought that if I have to sit on the side of the road for awhile it wouldn’t be too bad. Snowplows were out everywhere, so I figured they would have it open pretty quickly. I noticed all the big rigs weren’t slowing down and if anyone would know if it was closed or not, they would. So I decided to just follow them and sure enough, the road was open. As I approached Williams the clouds started clearing and the Sun was shining through. It turned into a lovely day.

I met ‘Smokey the Bear’ on my way into the Park.

Well, The Grand Canyon. What can I say? It is one BIG hole. It is true what they say about photo’s just can’t do it justice. As you approach the rim on the walking path you kind of come over the crest of the path and WOW! No seriously, I mean WOW!!! It literally takes your breath away. IT IS HUGE!!! I’ll post a picture or two but it won’t do it justice.

One of the strangest things I found fascinating was the amount of open edges that don’t have hand rails or anything. Whilst they did have a lot of hand rails there were other places where you can literally stand on the edge of a 1000ft drop. The walking path goes right past the edge within metres of it.  That pic of me was as close as I was going to get to the edge because it was a mile straight down. With the snow and ice around it was as slippery as hell. Luckily my mate David, who I visited in Sierra Vista, gave me a pair of 12 x 50 BARSKA binoculars. I had those with me and they were fantastic. There were hundreds of people around and not another person there had binoculars. They didn’t know what they were missing. I was seeing buildings and things down along the Colorado River you just couldn’t see with the naked eye. If anyone ever comes here, bring your Bino’s, or line up with the kids to put quarters into the fixed ones at the Lodges.

After a couple of hours of exploring the South Rim, I departed the Canyon and headed back to Williams. The township of Williams hosts the Rail hub for the historic Grand Canyon Railway. Next time, I think I might take the train for the novelty of it.  Williams is located on the original Route 66. It is full of Route 66 souvenir shops.

I have booked into a Motel 6 for night. Nice room for $44 per night. I just popped over to a SAFEWAY supermarket and bought some supplies to fill my esky. Tomorrow I am heading to Las Vegas Nevada via the Hoover Dam. The weather is supposed to clear up by then so it should be a nice drive. If time permits, I might pop up to the Grand Canyon Sky Walk on the West Rim. I’ll see what happens.