Time for the Grand Canyon (and a peaceful drive)

We have left Sedona on our Bucket List to come back.  One day is total injustice.  I recommend that you plan to visit here; RVing or Hotels, you decide, and you can pick the price range of luxury that suits you. There are full spa resorts, B&Bs by the hundreds, even a Motel 6 plus RV parks.  Our RV park was a heavenly oasis compared to the concrete jungles we have been in to date.  There were many camping spots within the park but they were 'no service' sites.  The commercial RV parks are all located outside of the State Red Rock Park. Ours was about 12 miles from Sedona.


Kaye and her shopping/browsing friends could easily spend a week just wandering the hundreds of unique shops here.  If you like art, you could spend a year here studying the thousands of artists who call this area home. There are six major museums and we did not see any of them.  See yesterday's photos of the city scenes.


Well, our plan was to escape the heat of Phoenix, which we did, so now it is off to Williams, AZ; "The Gateland to the Grand Canyon" and an access point to old Route 66.  We only travelled 70 miles today but we took most of the day to do it.  The 28 miles from Sedona to Flagstaff was a drive that equalled our trip on Hyw 44 over to Reno from the I5 in Sept 2010.  This was 15Mph corners, on the edge of 1000ft cliffs.  Kaye did not like it.   We climbed from Sedona; 3800ft, to nearly 6800ft in less than 20 miles.  It was great fun.  Only had a few idiots on suicide motorbikes screamed by with no helmets and passing on blind curves and double yellow lines.  Future ink blots.


We stopped at Luke AFB recreation area just before we joined the freeway South of Flagstaff for a quiet lunch in the picnic area.   And we are still eating very healthy Mother. 


Kyle found some ant hills that drove him crazy.  He started to dig and dig and dig.  I had time to make a quick video while laughing myself crazy.  I don't have a high speed internet connection so I won't be able upload it till our next stop.


We were able to bypass Flagstaff completely and take the I40 into Williams.  We are at the Railside Ranch RV park.  Guess what? It is right beside the Grand Canyon Railway yard parking.  And Yes there are lots of trains on the move but only the tourist trap train blows its whistle at 1730 on its return from the canyon. We were disappointed that the park does not have a pool or hot tub but the showers and facilities are lovely and very modern.  The owners are incredibly helpful and have saved us hundreds of dollars in tour fees by explaining how we can do our own self guided tour of the canyon.  In this way we can take Kyle and the National Park is free till the end of the month!


We wanted something to do for the afternoon, the hosts recommended we take a drive up into the mountains to Dogtown Lake where Kyle could go for a swim and a hike.  We envisioned our lakes at home....wrong...see the photos...Right out of Burt Reynolds movie Deliverance.


 We shot a little video of old route 66 on our way home, if it turns out OK I will post it in a few days.  Night, night.  Grand Canyon awaits tomorrow.