We left at 5am on a Saturday morning. I had a laptop computer along for navigation and motel reservations. We had good weather and made it to Springfield, MO for supper at the famous Lambert’s Café, home of throwed rolls. We spent night in Joplin, MO. On Sunday, we got back in the car and stopped in Amarillo, TX for a fine meal at Ruby Tequila’s Mexican restaurant. Then we continued on to Albequeque, NM. While coming down the mountain into the city, Caleb called Carolyn S in Gallup, NM and found out she was in Alb that night. We decided to go over to the CPS house and meet up with her. There were about ten kids there from Texas and some other girls from Gallup. We got there just as the party was winding down- but had a good time, anyway. We stayed at a motel in town and slept in the next morning.
Monday we had breakfast, and drove through the sunny desert between Alb and Flagstaff. We got to Flagstaff, AZ in early afternoon and went up to Grand Canyon to check things out around the rim. We planned to hike it R2R2R on Tuesday so we went to the Walmart in Flagstaff to stock up on Gatorade and Clif bars. We found this cool little motel along the old Rt. 66 that was real cheap. The guy behind the counter was friendly and we checked out a room and cleaned up and went to the mall for supper. We soon found out that Flagstaff was a very busy railroad town, as our room was right next to the track. Dumb me, I had never even given that a thought when we got the room. Oh well… we still slept pretty good, between the trains.
We got up early in the morning and left for Grand Canyon. We parked at the Bright Angel Lodge and took the hiker shuttle over to the South Kaibab trailhead. We started down the trail about 9am. We reached Phantom Ranch at 11:30am. The weather was just awesome, a little too bright though, because I had a pretty good sunburn by the time I got to the river. I bought some sunscreen that had been hauled by a mule, ate some gorp mix, and then we started up the Bright Angel Trail. We kept moving on the way up, stopping at Indian Garden for water. I was sore, but kept going and we reached the top at 6pm, just as the sun was setting. We planned to spend the night in Las Vegas, NV, but first we stopped at Rod’s Steakhouse in Williams, AZ for a recovery meal. Rod’s served us some great steaks and the best baked potato I had ever had. We finally left and drove back into the desert. The stars were so bright we could have driven by their light.
Finally we went over the rise by Boulder City and saw lights all the way to the horizon. We drove down the mountain into Las Vegas to the off-Strip motel we had booked by the airport. We had reserved a Howard Johnson Motel for $35 a night, for three nights. We went to our room and we had no towels or washcloths, and to top it off, the toilet was plugged and full of … nasty stuff. We called to the desk and asked for them give us another room, or at least come fix things up for us. We left the motel and went and cruised the Strip. When we got back nothing was changed; we had had an 18 hour day with 20 miles of hiking. We were totally exhausted, so we used some restrooms in a nearby restaurant and just went to sleep in our filthy room. The next morning I went to the front desk to try to get some help from a different shift of people. We were unsuccessful with getting a refund and finally, after waiting nearly 30 minutes, I was able to get some towels to take to our room. We showered, but the toilet was still plugged up. We were so sick of the motel -we wanted to find another place, even if we couldn’t get our money refunded. We complained a third time about our toilet, and loaded up all our clothes and left for the day.
We went to a Denny’s on the Strip and ate breakfast then walked most of the Strip. We checked out the Venetian, Paris, New York NewYork, MGM Grand, Bellagio, Monte Carlo, Aladdin, Luxor, Excaliber, Stratosphere, Wynn, Mirage, and Caesars’ Palace. The Bellagio fountains and the Venetian canals were spectacular. Walking through these casinos is like traveling to different countries around the world. Each one has a name matching its theme and décor. I just could not get enthused about gambling, even to pull a penny slot just once. Las Vegas is so different, and somewhat refreshing, then the compact congestion of New York or Boston. Each casino is like a mini-city, with parking garage, hotel, restaurants, and shopping mall.
We went to the Fashion Show Mall for supper and then back to the motel for night. Surprisingly our room was cleaner and the toilet fixed when we got back there. We decided to leave Las Vegas and drive to Yuma, AZ the next morning, after breakfast at the Aladdin.
We made it to Yuma in time for a fine dinner at a nice restaurant with patio dining. Caleb’s sister lived there, so we were with her and some of her friends for the evening. We decided to drive to San Diego for the rest of the night. San Diego was about a two hour drive through the desert. We planned on stopping at the first motels we saw, but one after another was full. We finally reached San Diego and still hadn’t found any motels that had vacant rooms. We decided to head towards LA in hopes of finding something there. It was 2 am before we finally landed a Ramada that had an empty room. Friday we slept until noon, did laundry in a Long Beach Laundromat, and then rollerbladed 18 miles of LA beach. We had a nice dinner at Olive Garden and drove to Barstow, CA for the night. Saturday we drove east to Moab, UT, a fairly long drive. One of Utah’s finest stopped us a few miles outside of town and welcomed us to Moab with a speeding ticket. We went to some gear stores and got directions to Wall Street, where we did a little climbing before dark. Had dinner in a Mexican restaurant and stayed at the Super 8 along Main. The Super 8 was basically deserted, the staff was very friendly, and everything -including the pool, hot tub, and our room, was very clean. They even have a bike room to securely store lodgers’ bikes. Highly recommend.
I fell in love with Utah right away. The desert country weather was clear and warm. The scenery was spectacular. On Sunday, we rented full suspension mountain bikes and rode the famous Slickrock Bike Trail. After an awesome ride there, we drove out to another trail way out of town. But after unloading our bikes we found out we were too sore to ride, after riding all the slickrock on the Slickrock Trail. We returned the bikes and had a nice pasta dinner at Zax. I could have spent at least a month more in Moab, but we had to leave for home before we ran out of funds.
Monday morning we drove to Denver and went to the REI store there. We walked 16th St. and spent the night on the east side of Denver. The next day we drove across the rest of Colorado all the way to Lawrence, on the east edge of Kansas. That was the most boring day of driving to date. Kansas had all the other states topped for uniform scenery, in the way of nothing. A kind trooper stopped us in Kansas and told us he wanted to look through our luggage for ‘drugs or guns or illegal stuff’. We obliged and waited while he dug out each carefully packed bag, looked through it, and then pushed and shoved to get it back into our overflowing trunk. He didn’t find anything suspicious, and half an hour later we were back on the road. We ate at a steakhouse in Topeka, and stayed night in the quiet little town of Lawrence. We went for a short run close the motel, the only exercise I had gotten all day. Lawrence is very, very still at night. The next day we drove to eastern Indiana for night, and reached home Thursday evening. We did a lot in the little time we had, and it felt a wee bit rushed, too. That’s usually how trips on a tight budget are. We had been gone for a little less than two weeks, and put 7,000 miles on the car.
Labels: California, Grand Canyon, hiking, Moab, rockclimbing, vacation