Grand Canyon

The road trip back from Catalina Island to Houston included two amazing stops over three days of driving. The first was the Hampton Inn in Barstow, CA where we got hot showers, free wireless high speed, two amazing plush queen size beds, and were able to watch the end of the Colorado / Arizona NLCS championship.

The second cool stop was the Grand Canyon. We were originally thinking about bagging the South Rim Grand Canyon National Park scene and instead camping at Havasu Falls- just to the southeast. You don't get the great canyon views at Havasu Falls but apparently the swimming holes have amazing turquoise water.

Well anyway, we ended up deciding to just go to the park at South Rim because we wanted to drive some more miles later that evening instead of camping. Our short Grand Canyon stop involved walking around the South Rim path and then eating a 4:30 dinner at the Arizona Room in the Bright Angel lodge, which overlooks the canyon rim. Since we came at such an early hour we got a table by the window and surprisingly the food was almost as good as the view. After dinner, a cactus margarita, and a pint beer we were back on the road.

By the way the official language of the Grand Canyon is anything but English. As US tourists we were definintely in the minority.