Day 4 Route 66 and the Grand Canyon

Apologies, no photos yet as Wi-Fi and internet access is poor at the Grand Canyon

We woke just before sunrise and opened the curtains to watch the sun peep over the mountains behind Home Depot!  The river looked very peaceful in the early morning sun with no water taxis or jet skis rippling the surface.

Sunrise over Home Depot!!

A while later we headed down to breakfast in one of the hotel cafes.  Keith had a skillet breakfast with 2 overeasy eggs and I had a French bread sandwich! Turkey, ham, maple bacon, mozzarella and sliced apples in a thick sandwich dipped in egg then fried til dark golden brown, served with maple syrup!  Bit odd to start with but the flavours together grew on me altho I in no way managed to eat it all!

unusual tea pot!

French Bread Sandwich - no calories at all!!!

We had another quick walk alongside the river and watched a trout catching flies on the surface of the water.

We loaded the car and checked out.  Temperature at 8am was 93°f. We crossed the river straight into Arizona and headed out to pick up Route 66 at Kingman after a quick fuel top up.  Again the roads were much better than we expected and the scenery fantastic with rocky mountains, vast plains and towns consisting of just a couple of buildings.  It also followed along the railroad tracks and we saw several long, long, long winding trains.  We drove through Seligman but decided it wasn't really our thing so rejoined the highway heading for the Grand Canyon.

We arrived just after 3 and after a couple of tours round the car park finally found a space.  We were staying at the Thunderbird Lodge in Grand Canyon Village but checkin was  next door at Bright Angel Lodge.  We walked along the canyon path getting our first views of the canyon.   We have a 2nd floor room with partial views over the canyon.

View from our room

After a cup of tea and a freshen up we grabbed the camera and headed out onto to the rim trail.  What a stunning place!  Almost surreal, it looks like a painting! Majestic and so peaceful.  We met a few others on the trail but it was relatively quiet.  We stopped at many points along the way to take pictures and just to admire.  We walked for about an hour and a half before heading back.  We arrived back at the village just in time for the sunset.  We sat for a while til the sun disappeared and the canyon was all in shade, then went back to our room.

For dinner we headed to the restaurant in Bright Angel Lodge but unfortunately they had kitchen problems and had closed the restaurant.  We walked to the food court at Maswick Lodge and had burger and fries!  Not exactly how we planned our evening.  Never mind.  We walked back along the canyon rim marvelling at the moonlit walkways and amazed at the number of stars we could see. 

Another fabulous, busy day and we are ready for bed at 9pm!  Going to hopefully be up really early tomorrow to see the sun rise.