Monday morning, we tagged our luggage and had our breakfast. We didn't even have to carry the luggage downstairs. Once we notified them we were "checking out", they knew to gather our luggage and put it aboard the train. It was pretty frigid since we were at altitude (1382 feet) and Kirk was glad I made him bring some cold-weather gear.

We took some time to walk around the gift shop a little to scout out what we might spend our gift certificates on. I saw a really nice fleece jacket we could get if we pooled our resources. We grabbed a Starbucks coffee (yes there is a little Starbucks right there in the depot) and headed over to watch the shoot-out. I met a couple from Thailand along the way and chatted with them. It sometimes amazes me how much I miss the variety of accents and cultures from our RTW. The show was pretty corny, but cute.


We boarded our train and headed out. The conductor (who also turned out to be our server - he served us sodas and such during the trip) was quite funny. About 30 minutes after we departed, a cowboy with a fiddle came to our car and entertained us for the rest of the trip. He was quite a good fiddler and interacted well with the audience.

Once we arrived at the Grand Canyon, we were picked up by a bus and driven over to the Maswik Lodge, where we had lunch in their cafeteria. Most of the folks on the trip were only in the Grand Canyon for a day - they were taking the afternoon train back. I had booked us to spend the night. Of course, when I booked the trip, I didn't expect I would have broken my ankle a couple of months before - I expected we'd do some hiking.

It was really cold outside and it was nice to get indoors and have some hot food and drink. Afterwards, we piled back onto our bus and they drove us to some of the major viewing points on the Canyon. It was pretty cool to hear some of the history in addition to getting all the wonderful views.

After our tour, we checked into our hotel and found our bags had been delivered straight to our room! We relaxed for a bit and then headed over to the El Tovar Hotel for dinner. The El Tovar is an historic landmark and quite beautiful, capturing the spirit of the by-gone days of the European-style hunting lodge. Made of stone, it's perched on the edge of the canyon and has spectacular views from the South Rim. It was built in 1905 by the Santa Fe Railroad and has been called, "the architectural crown jewel of the Grand Canyon." It is also also renowned for its world-class dining room, The El Tovar Dining Room (where we ate). "A memorable dining experience in the Arizona wilderness while enjoying breathtaking views of the Canyon." They have an extensive and expensive menu. The food was quite good, indeed, however, a bit over-priced, we thought. We did splurge and have dessert - it was pretty cute!

We made it an early night; Kirk wanted to be up quite early on Tuesday to catch sunrise over the canyon. I tried to wake up when he did, but was a bit late. I was out the door only about 5 minutes after him, but JUST missed the shuttle. Since we didn't have our car with us, we had to rely on the shuttle to get around. I caught the next one, and arrived at the canyon as fast as I could. At the point where I had to change shuttles, I had to walk (hobble/run?) a pretty good distance to catch the next bus; I was afraid I'd miss it, but I just got there in time.

Kirk had been taking photos for a while when I arrived, although the sun still had not cleared the edge of the rim. When it did clear, the view was spectacular! The canyon is beautiful at all times, but it has different hues at different times of the day (sort of like Uluru, which we visited in December of 2002 on our RTW).

After Kirk's fingers were too frozen to take any more photos, we grabbed the shuttle back and ate breakfast at the Maswik Lodge and checked out of our room (again, we didn't have to worry about our bags). Then we caught another shuttle to the visitor's center. We toured around that a bit, and then headed to the trail that runs along the canyon rim. We walked a good bit of that trail, stopping at a variety of places to take photos. (Do you remember I broke my ankle less than 2 months ago?). Eventually, I was limping so badly I couldn't really walk anymore. We managed to get me to a shuttle stop and we got back on. We went over to Bright Angel Lodge and had some lunch and relaxed a bit. Then we stole one more quick look at the canyon before boarding the train back to Williams.

On the way back to Williams, the train was "robbed". I was actually on my cell phone (my mom had called from Kansas) and said, "Oh, I've got to go...we're being robbed!" Luckily, she didn't think I was serious!

Back in Williams, we spend another night at the Grand Canyon Railroad Hotel. We also had another dinner at Max & Thelma's. The food was MUCH better this time! It turns out, they dumb down the food during the Polar Express because of all the children who are there.

On Wednesday, we had breakfast, bought the great fleece jacket we had spotted earlier (using our gift certificates) and headed back toward civilization.

To be continued...

Labels: Events, Family, Food, Transportation, Travel