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| Taken on the road at 75mph (I love my iPhone 7+) |
Day 2 started with breakfast at our hotel at 7am, then we hit the road at 8:30. On the way we gained another hour and reached Flagstaff at 12:30 local time. We turned North off of I40 at Williams and drove 50 miles to our hotel (Holiday Inn Express again) in Tusuyan, AZ.
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| The uncropped version of the prior photo |
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| The forever road that goes from I40 to Tusayan and the Grand Canyon. 50 miles long and no curves with not much to see except... |
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| Todd's family has pictures of his grandparents in Bedrock City in the ? - 1960's or 70's. |
Tusayan is a (very small) town just a mile south of the south rim entrance to the
Grand Canyon National Park. There are a few restaurants, a few hotels, a small airport, a National Geographic visitor's center (not part of the National Park) with an IMAX theater, and most importantly, shuttles that will take you into the park.
The shuttles make a loop through town every 20 minutes, picking up passengers at 4 sheltered stops (IMAX, Best Western, Grand Hotel, Steakhouse) before driving into the Grand Canyon Park. You must already have your entrance fee paid for the park and show proof to the driver when boarding. When we went to the Badlands in South Dakota Mom paid $10 (just increased to $80 at the end of August) for a lifetime Senior entry pass. The pass was good for all of us to ride the shuttle and enter the park.
The shuttle then drives a mile and goes through a designated lane into the park, bypassing the long line of cars waiting to pay at the entrance station. Four miles later it drops you off at the South Rim Visitor's Center where you can then use the internal system of free shuttles to get around. This entire system is fantastic, and saved a lot of time and hassle, especially since the parking lots were consistently full.
We checked into our hotel around 2:45, walked to the National Geographic center and learned about the shuttle system. There was a stop right outside so we waited and soon were on our way to the Grand Canyon.
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| First view of the Grand Canyon. Pictures don't capture the true enormity and depth of it. |
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| A short walk from the Visitor's Center is Mather Point and it's scenic lookout |
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| Wow |
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| Beautiful |
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| A tiny glimpse of the Colorado River at the bottom (in the lower left portion of the photo) |
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| Ok, last one for now |
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| Well, one more because I like the woman in this photo |
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| Live your best life |
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| I was there |
After going to the rim and checking out the official Visitor's Center we talked about our plans for the next day before taking the shuttle back into town. Todd and I decided to hike the South Kaibab trail down to Ooh Aah Point, and Mom, Shirley and Walt chose to use the shuttles and check out the different points along the canyon's rim. After all that was settled we rode the shuttle bus back to town.
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| Bigfoot! |
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| Oh, nope. Whew. It's an elk cow. We saw several of them over the next few days, but no bulls/stags. Per the shuttle driver they won't be around until mating season later in the year. |
We got back into town and decided to go to one of the 4 steakhouses for dinner. Keep in mind that Tusuyan is small, and the next nearest town is 50 miles south. Aside from 3 fast food options (Wendy's, McDonald's, Pizza Hut) it had 2 Mexican restaurants, a pizza/pasta place, and 4 different steakhouses (none of which have great reviews). They really want you to eat beef there.
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| Tusayan sky |
We had a toss up between Mexican food and steak, and settled on steak. Our hotel recommended the Yippie-ei-o! steakhouse at the north end of the road, but we got the feeling they were getting some sort of kickback for the recommendation. Instead we decided to head catty-corner across the street to the Big E Steakhouse which looked, well, big, and inviting like a not-a-hole-in-the-wall kind of place. Walt asked some people coming out of the restaurant how it was and we should have turned and left when they said it was fine after they had to complain. Instead we soldiered on in.
The interior of the place that we could see was decorated like an old-timey saloon. We again should have left when the hostess said it would be about a 20-30 minute wait despite the fact that we could see through a door into the main dining room and about half the tables were empty. But we soldiered on and went wait in the bar which was virtually empty. The nail in the coffin came from the bartender who took one drink order from our group while ignoring the others of us waiting at the bar. Only after it was made and paid did he come over to us. He looked like he was finally going to acknowledge us or say something but then some of his friends came in and sat down at the bar a few stools over. He was looking right at us but instead of greeting us or asking what we'd like he turned around, walked over and started to talking to them instead. Inexcusable. So we left. For the rest of our stay we heard many other people talking about the Big E and sharing stories of their own terrible service experiences. Skip this one and go somewhere else instead.
We crossed the street again and Walt asked a woman pushing a strolling if she lived there, and if so where would she recommend we eat? Without hesitation she enthusiastically said
Plaza Bonita. So that's where we went and we were so glad we did!
The food there was plentiful and delicious and our waitress Eliana was one of the best servers I've ever had: attentive and genuinely friendly with an infectious smile. For dinner I had the arroz con pollo with a side of guacamole. Dessert was the
best flan I have ever tasted, and I'm not a flan fan to begin with. I followed it up with a Monte Cristo Coffee which was to die for. Dinner was such a great experience; the complete opposite of the terrible Big E. We happily went back to the Plaza Bonita the next night after another steakhouse misfire - more on that in the next post.
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| I can still taste it - delicious |
Sated and happy, we walked back to our hotel and went to our respective rooms around 8:30. Sleep came for me at 10pm - it had been a long, but not unsatisfactory day.
Coming up next post: Todd and I hike the South Kaibab Trail down into the Canyon (a little).
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