Road Trip: Southwest

Day 6: Sunday, April 27, 2025 - Flagstaff, AZ, and the Grand Canyon NP

Day's statistics:
Weather: upper 50s, breezy
Steps: Steve 15,818; Linda 13,540
Travel: 138 miles

Breakfast was the same as yesterday because... the hotel was the same as yesterday. And it was equally busy by the time we left, though there were still a fair amount of people there when we arrived, including that woman and her Chihuaua.
Today, though, we overheard this conversation: "Is Zoey going to be a good girl today?" "Yes, mommy."
Indeed that was between the woman and her dog.
I don't normally take pictures of breakfast when they are "basic", but in this case I did for no particular reason.
Linda had an English muffin with PB&J; and I had a waffle, a yogurt, and a little granola.

Today was the day we were going to visit our third national park of this trip, and today we were visiting the Grand Canyon.
We heard that the lines at the GC gate can get lengthy, so we awoke a little early - 6:30 instead of 7:00 - to try to make sure we got on the road sooner to hopefully beat the traffic.
When initially planning the trip, we planned on making a stop or two on the way to the park. But due to the timing I just mentioned, we decided to stop on the way back instead.
There is a LOT - from a landscape perspective - to see in this region, and we just couldn't see it all. There were a couple sights we would like to have seen but couldn't because of time - yes, we could have spent MORE time in this area, but we were trying to balance our schedule, or that a sight was just too far away - like three hours each way (not that it may or may not be worth it, but as we try not to drive more than three to four hours a day, that is a two day trip for one sight).
By right around 7:30 we were able to head out, probably because we didn't have to pack as we were returning to this hotel for a third and final night. We saw another wind farm and a couple forests too.


As we approached the park, I counted 12 vehicles in a row along the road. A couple did turn off before the park entrance, but the majority of headed on.
When we finally arrived at the South Rim entrance, there were three lanes open, and we were about eighth on the rightmost lane.
We showed our pass and made our way to the VC, and acquired our stamp.

After talking to a Ranger, we first headed to Mather Point, passing a chipmonk, and a design in the cement.


We purposely approached the overlook without peeking.
Then we opened our eyes to behold the grandeur of the Grand Canyon (yea, that's a little redundant).





Before moving to the next area, we took a selfie.

We returned to the [main] VC, and borded the shuttle to the Hopi House stop in the Village, where we debussed and had a short walk - up hill, no less - to the Verkamp's VC.
We went inside for a little and chatted with Ranger Michael. Somehow we got on the subject of games, and then he started talking about chess. Then he invited me upstairs to play a game. After about twenty moves, he resigned.
At one point I decided to put the wide-angle lens on the camera. While this provides more landscape to take in on one photo, the small drawback is that it plays havoc when trying to stitch panoramas.
This was another spectacular viewpoint.


We walked to another vantage point to the west.



We passed by a couple of the lodges to get to this spot, called (or near) Hermit Station.



For some reason, Linda couldn't stop looking at the spot on my shirt...

There was quite the drop-off.

But this spot also had an unexpected marker.
It reads "Boston Museum of Science - Translation Station - Do Not Disturb". Reasearch at home revealed that it is a way marker used to create a better canyon map in the 1970s, and is now also used for geocaching.

We decided to visit the lodge in order to use the facilities as we were going to be boarding the shuttle back to the main VC and we didn't know what sort of delays there might be.

After our pit stop, we continued on along the rim, walking toward Kolb Studio.



Before leaving this area of the rim, we took another selfie too.

We hopped on the shuttle, but we weren't going back to the VC yet. We were going to stop at the Village first. On the way we passed by the stable where the miles used for the hikes into the canyon are housed.

After three (or four) stops, we got off the bus.
The Village happened to have a Post Office and a library, though both were [probably] closed because it was Sunday.


We decided we would seek out some lunch at the Village area as it was really one of the only places within the park to get decent priced food. They not only had a supermarket type of store (likely for those that were camping at the canyon), and also a cafeteria style dining area.

Linda had the Chipotle Chicken sandwich, and I had the Navajo taco.


After our meal, we boarded the shuttle and complete the trip back to the VC.
But we weren't yet done at the GC. We were now going to head to the East Rim. Originally we were going to do the East Rim first, but after reading what we did about the lines at the South Rim entrance, we decided to switch the two and visit them in reverse order.
So we had a twenty or so minute drive to the ER.
Along the way, there were a couple overlooks too. Of course we briefly stopped to get some pictures.
The shadow of the cloud on the canyon walls was particularly interesting.


As we were driving along, at one point I slammed on the brakes (after quickly making sure no one was behind us) and threw the car into reverse, and saw what I initially thought might have been a moose. I popped the zoom lens on the camera and saw this mule deer - sadly, not a moose.

And further on.





Eventually we arrived at the ER. We parked and headed to the overlook.






This area of the Grand Canyon was considered the Desert View. There was a VC with a historic observation tower.

And a stamp.

There was a plane crash marker from 1956.

There were a number of viewpoints we stopped at. While there are a LOT of pictures above, here is a composite of a number of landscape pans.

On the way out of the park we got this welcome sign because we must have missed it on the way in.

Since our visit to the park covered two "entrances", we were now more than twenty miles away from where we began. Rather than drive all the way back to the South Rim entrance, we took the roadway near where we now were at the East Station entrance. Due to what we were going to see, this turned out to be in our favor.
Some sights along the way to our next stop.
Yea, probably should have stowed that parking permit until we returned to the hotel...



Just a few minutes from our destination was this interesting cloud formation. While I am no meteorologist, it sure does look like there is some precipitation going on over there...


It was a bit more than an hour until we finally arrived at Wupatki National Monument.

We stepped inside the VC, got our stamp, and chatted with the Rangers a little.

This was an old pueblo site, with a decent amount of it still intact even though the structures are believed to be nearly one thousand years old.
There were three placards that contained text about the region, and I've retained the just the text here for readability.



Most of the remaining strucutre was rather large.


After viewing the site from the hill top, I decended down into the area for a closer inspection of the collection of structures that included a ball court (at the end).







Lastly, there was an Earth's breathing hole. This was similar to what we saw at Wind Cave in SD.

Our visit to the monument was about an hour.
We continued our drive through the area, rather than double-backing on the road, to return to the interstate further south than where we were. This saved at least a half hour of driving.
The drive took us through another large National Forest.

Before making it back to Flagstaff, we were going to visit another site: Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument.
As we approached the VC, we passed through some areas that were ravaged by the volcano. Almost 1,000 years ago... The soil was still black.

Sadly, the Tunnel Fire of April 2022 burned a significant amount of the area and, three years later, the effects are still visible, though the foliage is showing signs of recovering.



We eventually made it to the boundry of the NM.

But we still had a little driving to do to get to the VC.




There was a brief snow squall we drove through too.
We finally arrived at the VC.

And it was 4:35. Five minutes after they closed.
Though the Rangers were in the process of taking the US flag down, we didn't think to ask them to stamp our book for us. Also, someone else pulled up while we were chatting with the Rangers. He was wearing shorts and a lightweight long sleeve shirt. But it was essentiually cold enough to snow. He admitted he didn't pack well for the trip, especially since he was flying into a region with temps that hit the upper 80s and low 90s.
After climbing back into the car, we finished the trek back to Flagstaff.

It was almost too late for coffee. But we shared a Starbucks® anyway.
After watching four - literally - trains go by, talking, and playing on our phones for a bit, we finally headed out.
We ran to Safeway® to pick up a light dinner of a couple wings (they were already been put away for the night), some bread, Gouda, and wine.
We returned to the room to eat. I put the wings scraps in the garbage outside the hotel door when I ran out to get the larger luggage to move things about, and replenish the carry-ons.

After the luggage thing, I put the large bags back into the car to ease departure in the morning.
We relaxed a bit, washed up, and went to bed.

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