Day 4 - To the Canyon

Today we slept in till 5:30 AM. I know a whole 30 minutes from our previous times, but it can make a difference.  We were on the road headed out of Albuquerque by 6:30 AM which was fine since it was only going to be a 6-hour drive to the Grand Canyon.   Because it was only going to be a 6-hour drive, and we couldn’t check into the lodge till 4:00PM we made a few stops along the way.

The first stop was for gas and breakfast. We stopped at a Love’s which had Carl Junior’s. Jim got a breakfast burrito, which he said was pretty good, way better than McDonald’s breakfast burrito. I just had a standard sausage biscuit. With the car fueled and breakfast in hand we were on the road again.  

The landscape along the drive was much more interesting as we headed out into the desert, and more along the lines of what I was expecting to see.  I think I was subconsciously comparing landscapes to the cartoon landscapes in the movie Cars. (Disney strikes again.) To get to the Arizona visitor center, you have to exit the interstate and drive up a little access road to it.  I really should have had my camera at the ready because the pull off intersection was interesting with a now defunct building built into a rock wall.  Sadly, the visitor center was not open, so I couldn’t get my map. I’m getting really disappointed by the southwest state’s welcome centers.   

Our next stop was the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. Basically you start in one park and just follow the road till it exits at the end of the other park.  It was a nice 28-mile drive, with several pull offs, we didn’t stop at all of them, just a handful to get a good feel for the landscape and see some points of interest. We did the 3-mile loop drive at the Blue Mesa pull off, which was pretty. We also did one tiny walk along the .75-mile loop trail at the Crystal Forest pull off to look at all the petrified logs.  From there it was back onto the main roads.  

We stopped in the tiny town of Holbrook for lunch at an A&W. We just beat the lunch rush coming in.  After lunch we stopped at the Wigwam hotel to get some pictures.  It is set up so it looks like it is out of the 1950’s and 1960’s with classic cars parked in front of the giant teepees. It would probably look a lot cooler in the evening with the neon on, but I’ll take what we can get.  From there it was off to the Grand Canyon. 

I watched the National Geographic’s documentary on the Grand Canyon before we left, so I was aware that the southern rim has a Ponderosa Pine forest bordering it and some of those trees are in the park.  However, it is still a bit of a surprise after you've been driving through barren desert.  We got through the park gate and wound our way to our hotel in the Grand Canyon Village for the next few days. Maswik Lodge is nice, simple but it does have air conditioning in the rooms. Air conditioning is important.  After checking in we took the bus over to the El Tovar hotel for dinner and our first real view of the canyon.   The national park set up a bus system to reduce the number of cars and traffic jams within the park.  So we will be using the bus system to get around for the next few days. From there it was over to the Bright Angel Lodge to check in a head of time for our mule ride in the morning. After we were all checked in for the mule ride it was back to our lodge and room.  

First View from El Tovar

Tomorrow will be our first full day in the canyon, starting with a mule ride along the rim.