Grand Canyon West

FINALLY I got my chance to VACATION! I sure waited long enough.  

On Monday October 30, 2000 I picked up Scott in Vegas, Wednesday morning at 3:30 AM Dave was scheduled to arrive in Kingman.  Unfortunately, a train accident near Flagstaff the night before caused a full day delay.

I ended up NOT sleeping at all Thursday night,  and Friday morning I tried but couldn't sleep. With another rain storm in the forecast, I decided to try to waterproof the patio floor one more time. In the background you can see the Grandwash Cliffs on the North side of Grand Canyon West.

Gr

Scott did a great job on the plastic, now it's just a matter of waiting for the first wind storm!

Saturday morning we headed for Grand Canyon West.  Fortunately the weather forecast completely missed, it was sunny almost all of November.

The 21 mile dirt road off Pierce Ferry Road was especially rough for the first few miles, the washboard was some of the worst I've ever seen.

A word of caution:  There's hardly any traffic EXCEPT for those Vegas tour buses and the occasional European tourists.  It's easy to forget that those maniac bus drivers are on a schedule and wash board doesn't slow them down.

Watch your rearview mirror for the speeding buses and look out for COWS on the road.

This is Joshua Tree country.

They're not really trees at all. And it hurts bad when you run into one, once I had to go wash the blood out of my eyes. Don't know how the birds avoid getting stabbed.

I've seen Joshies from the freeway, but not until I started spending a lot of time in the Northern Arizona high desert did I get to appreciate this very special "tree."
 

It was a wonderful drive up. I think it's BLM land all the way to the Hualapai reservation at the Grand Canyon. And of course there is the ranch that goes with the cows along the way.

Once we reached the plateau we took the paved road to the parking lot, store and airport. Helicopter rides started at $100 for a 15 minute flight. We skipped the helicopters and got our $10.50/person tickets to drive to the West Rim overlook.

Scott above and Dave below.  The Colorado was very muddy since we'd had a lot of rain the previous week.

It was really nice NOT to have to deal with crowds.  I have never been to the North Rim because I just don't care for gazillions of tourists and parking problems.  The West Rim is my kind of place to be.

Flowers in October

On the way back down we stopped several times and we took a little side trip on BLM land.

Scott is ready to go, to continue his search for this little canyon he saw on the way up. Unfortunately it got dark on us.

It was a beautiful drive back down to Pierce Ferry Road.  I hope I'll find the time to get back up there soon for some serious camping.

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