We set our alarms for 6:30-7:00. I laid in bed for a few extra minutes while Mom showered. We got dressed, packed up our stuff into our bags so we would have less stuff to carry, and spent some time eating our blueberry muffins, yogurt and bananas. We checked out on the TV, which was a first for both of us, and took ourselves and our stuff downstairs. We dropped off our keys at the lobby and went outside to grab our rental car from the valet.
I handed him the ticket and we went to go get the rental car from the parking garage. Mom left her stuff with me while she walked down the street to go take a few pictures of the Fremont area, our hotel and the surroundings--obviously it would look cooler at night, but we decided to turn in and get ready for bed instead of going out and walking around. Once the rental car arrived, I tipped the guy $2 and I spent some time rearranging everything, making our food and drinks accessible and setting up our GPS. Mom came back and we hopped into the rental car and drove off to the next thing on our list, getting pictures of the Pawn Stars building.
We put the address in and found out it wasn't too far away from our hotel. I pulled over on a side road, parked and Mom got out to get a few pictures in. From there, we drove to a huge souvenir store near the Stratosphere called Bonanza Gift and Souvenir Shops. We got there just as it opened so there weren't that many people around. We browsed and found a few things to bring home. The place was huge! We paid and took our stuff to the rental car.
We noticed that on the way to the souvenir store, there wasn't any places to pullover to take pictures of the signs. Mom walked over to the security guard and asked if we could leave our rental car in the parking lot and go take a few pictures. Mom said he appeared to be drunk or a little slow, but he let us park our rental car there. He told her that it was fine but only a few minutes and that we had to be back in time, or the alarms and lights will go off. What? Exactly.
We walked to the arch Las Vegas sign and the other sign with the girls and dice. We had to adjust our picture to keep the homeless man out of our photo, so it looks weird.
We walked back to the rental car and no alarms and lights went off. I mean, we knew it wasn't going to happen, but we humored him. I set the GPS to the Welcome to Las Vegas sign down Las Vegas Blvd and pulled into the parking lot. Mom got out to wait in line because there was a huge crowd a head of her. Luckily, most of them were part of a group so once they were done, they all left. I found a place to park and then met up with Mom to wait our turn for a photo.
Of course, no matter where you go, there are always Asian teenagers in front of you who must take thousands of pictures of themselves in various poses. I feel like we waited for our turn for at least ten minutes. When it was finally our turn, we were there for less than a minute. We got a few shots with the guy who was "supervising" the visitors at the sign. I bet he sees hundreds of people in a day. I found Sign of Las Vegas (GC3178Z) and gave Mom credit for the virtual cache at the sign, Welcome to Las Vegas (GC729A). I had found it in 2013 when I came here with Brenda and Ray to do the ET Highway. I also got in one of the waypoints to an Adventure Lab.
We walked back to the rental car and started our journey down to Kingman. I put GPS coords into the Nuvi and off we went. We got onto I-215 and drove towards Lake Mead. We stopped at an overlook and did an earthcache, Lake Mead Scenic Overlook (GC853Y7). It wanted us to answer questions about the hillside across the highway.
We got back in the rental car and drove over the state line into Arizona. You can't see the dam from the new bypass. The last time Mom and I drove this way the bypass wasn't finished, and you could drive over the dam to get into Arizona. We followed US Route 93 all the way to Kingman. The road was in pretty bad shape in some areas, we had to follow some slow traffic and you could see tons of shanties off in the distance near Dolan Springs.
It took us about 2 hours to get from south Las Vegas to Kingman. I asked Mom if she wanted to stop in Kingman and she said yes. We got off of the highway and made our way in town down an old section of Route 66. We stopped at the visitor's center and went inside to look around. There was a lot of information about Route 66 and two gift shops. We looked around, used the restroom and even bought a few things to take home. We went back outside to take a picture with the Kingman sign. Of course, we had to wait our turn.
I did two waypoints from two separate Adventure Labs, got our photo we wanted and before we left, I needed to find at least one geocache here. I found one with a bunch of favorite points, Kingman Creators (GC7XC35).
We drove the couple blocks into town, found a place to park and I went to go look for it while Mom sat in the rental car. I didn't find it right away because I wasn't sure exactly what I was looking for. It was near an art shop and the shop owners were there. They asked me if I needed any help with anything and I had to explain to them what I was doing. Neither of them had any clue what geocaching was. I looked at some of the photos from previous finders and finally found what I was looking for. I told the shop owners, and they had no idea that was even there! At least they know about it now just in case more people show up looking confused.
I put the next set of coordinates into the GPS, we got onto I-40 and headed east to Williams. It took us about two hours to get there and I-40 was so torn up. Mom and I were discussing, along the way, that we did not remember the roads being this bad when we drove through here in July 2010. We passed a lot of semi-trucks and was on alert every time we hit a crunchy spot along the way. We tried our hardest to avoid the potholes. Once we got into Williams, we noticed there was still snow on the ground and saw the temperature outside: 37 degrees. Brrr. I didn't care that it was cold as long as it wasn't raining.
We found a place to park and spent about a half hour wandering around the different shops the town had to offer. This is another spot along Route 66 so there were a lot of things to look at. I bought a couple of things and a bottle of Route 66 hot sauce for Zac for his birthday. I wanted to find at least one cache here, so I pulled up the map and saw there was a virtual a few blocks away. Eight Cribs (GC6E48) was an oldie from July 2002 and asked us a few questions about the building. I took a picture of the plaque with the answers on it and made a note of it in my travel journal.
Mom was hungry so we decided what we wanted to eat. We found a place to eat at Station 66, inside was an Italian Bistro that served pizza and a bar that featured many of the local beers. We ordered our pepperoni pizza; I went to go use the restroom and wash my hands and decided to try one of their beers. I chose Old West Amber from the Historic Brewing Company out of Flagstaff. It paired well with our pizza.
We walked back to the rental car and followed the signs out of Williams to the Grand Canyon north on Route 64. It was weird driving this road again after almost 13 years. It got colder as we drove closer and closer to the canyon. Mom and I wanted to stop at Bedrock City, just outside of Williams.
I read in an article before we left that it is no longer a campground but a place to see large birds and remnants of the old Flintstone structures and characters. It closed down and reopened as Raptor City in 2019. Mom and I each paid the $8 to go see the old structures.
Bedrock City opened in 1972, following the owner's success with a similar park near Mount Rushmore in South Dakota in 1966. That one closed in 2015 after 49 years of bringing joy to the public, and with the new ownership unfortunately, all of the Flintstone likeness was taken down and it reopened as Buffalo Ridge. We went through the gate and looked at the birds and goats first. We really weren't there for the animals but more for the Flintstone exhibits, buildings and structures. We were both really excited to see them. I know Mom and Dad has been here in the 80's because there are pictures in the trunk that I've seen. We had a great time exploring the area.
We used the restroom before leaving and heading up to the Grand Canyon. The traffic was light, which was to be expected due to the off season, but we didn't mind. Once we got to Tusayan you could definitely tell it was the off season. We popped into the Visitor's Center, looked around for a few minutes and I bought Ben his Grand Canyon souvenir he wanted. I ended up finding a light long sleeved hooded sweatshirt in a gray bluish color. We walked back out to the rental car and drove to the gate. Mom, proudly, got her National Park lifetime pass out and showed it to the ranger, he handed it back to us along with our receipt and a park map. We followed the road to the large parking lot, found a place to park.
We walked along the south rim of the canyon and was very nice to not be in a huge hurry unlike the last time we were here. This was also the first time we were here with snow on the ground. It gave the Grand Canyon a different visual depth to the landscape. We walked around for about an hour or so, taking it all in, lots of photos and just happy to be on vacation away from home and somewhere different.
I wanted to go see some of the other places within Tusayan, such as the village. We did a short drive around and Mom pointed to all of the buildings she remembered going into while Grandma Karen lived there with Pat and Angela. We turned around and followed the road out to the east entrance to the National Park, Route 64 (Desert View Drive). Last time we were here it was getting dark, and we couldn't see a lot along this road. I didn't realize there were several pull outs and other viewpoints of the canyon.
We stopped at the Desert View Watchtower viewpoint so I could use the restroom before driving to Page, our next destination of the day. The sun was going down and it was getting colder. There was lot of snow on the ground. I got a few pictures of the tower and the sun setting to the west of the canyon. It was a remarkable experience watching the sunset at the Grand Canyon. When the sun finally went down, I started my short walk back to the rental car and Mom, used the restroom along the way and could not wait to get back in the rental car because my hands were so cold!
We made one more stop along the highway before leaving the canyon. I wanted a Grand Canyon cache and found a spot along the road to stop. They were both earthcaches, GCNP - Duck on a Rock (GC894W5) and These Geodes Don't Belong Here! A GCNP Mystery (GCA3R16). The first one literally looked like a rubber duck sitting on top of a rock and the second one talked about why geodes don't grow in this area but more in southern Arizona. Both were interesting to learn about. We got back into the rental car and drove east towards Cameron.
Cameron was roughly 30 miles from where we were. I had to pass a few people because I didn't want to drive slow in the middle of nowhere. I saw we needed gas and once we got to Cameron we stopped and got gas at the Chevron. I bought gas first and got $.50 off with our Safeway points. I paid $3.50 a gallon. Not bad.
We got back onto Route 89 and drove north towards Page. It took us about an hour and a half to get into town and the drive was all in the dark, so we didn't get to see what was around us while we drove. We chatted about random stuff and listened to podcasts while we drove. We got to town around 8:45 and stopped at the Walmart in town to get another bag of ice, Kleenex and some cherry Twizzlers Pull and Peel. We paid, threw our ice into the cooler and made our way to our hotel for the night.
We arrived at the Super 9, Mom checked us in, we found a place to park near room 201. We rolled our suitcases, bags and other gear up to the second floor. We got settled in, I got cleaned up, we made some popcorn, ate an orange, talked to Ben for a while, journaled in my notebook and got ready for bed because we had to get up early for our tour the following morning mostly because we didn't understand the time zone and when they observed it.
Some notes on the day:
Between Vegas, Kingman, Williams, Grand Canyon to Page we drove 342 miles.
We walked 15,450 steps which is about 6 miles.
Drove part of Route 66 in Arizona, the same section we did back in July 2010.
Finally got to stop at Bedrock City, a place we did have enough time to stop at the last time we were here. I am so happy we did.
First time seeing the Grand Canyon with snow.
We found six geocaches, of those six, two were traditionals, three were earthcaches and one was a virtual with two waypoints to two different Adventure Labs.
Next Adventure: Nevada/Arizona Vacation: Page, Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, Winslow, Sedona and Phoenix
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