A Dam-less Drive to the Ditch

As you can tell, we had a big day yesterday, so we took it easy on ourselves in the morning. I was experiencing a lot of frustration with the ole Blog, but luckily my new sewer hose kept me out of the shit for the morning, literally. We hit the road about 10:30 or so, already baking hot...

We could not take the most direct route to the Grand Canyon, as the wind had wiped out 2 cranes on Hoover Dam and they had closed that road. See, we weren't exaggerating! As for Hoover, I've driven it before, so it wasn't a big deal to me; we had Judy helping us with Highway updates, and only had to add maybe 20 - 30 miles to our already easy day.

The traffic was bad, since everyone else had to take the detour, but it still moved along well. Wind continued to be an issue, not as severely though, thankfully. The scenery was again quite spectacular, and again, really started to change in the visible geology. Now things are much more rocky in the sense of huge piles of boulders in stacks or ridges, but not so much the softer erosion features that we've seen. Here's a shot of "Shoot the Bird" rock, as we saw and named her.

We touched the State of California today, at a place in the road called Cal-Nev-Ari, and damned if you aren't in all 3 almost... The town was a Casino and a trailer park, but who besides me is noting things like that.



As noted in the fuel stats to follow, we pulled off for a break, and decided to get gas while we were at it; we found ourselves in Seligman, and on part of Old Route 66. That was a nice little surprise, but since it only ran about 20 miles there, we opted back onto Interstate.
We are staying in Williams, at a nice little KOA. This puts us about an hour's drive North to the South Rim of the Canyon. The KOA has a great 'indoor' pool and hot tub, and we took great advantage of that. We did try to walk down the road to the Trading Post, but it was closed...

The restauarant attached to it said it was open, but it could've been the Twilight Zone for all we knew - there were two ashtrays and two packs of cigarettes on two benches. I immediately imagined the cook and the waitperson, both bored out of their skulls, and they've given up even picking up their pack of cigarettes when they went back in to sit around and wait for a customer. It was that bleak.

We did indeed after dinner, a hot tub dip and some dog attention, sit down and drink some Champagne to celebrate my 15Kday. I figured out also that Marge and I have been together around 5445 days, so I've spent over a 1/3rd of those days with her, and that was also something to celebrate.

We tried to watch a movie - the only Neil Simon movie I will ever recommend - Murder by Death. It is funny, in that old world way, before things got PC, and the world moved on. We made it about 1/4 of the way into it before passing out, so we gave up and went to sleep.

Monday morning - into the Big Ditch... the word is that the Mule rides here are all day long; that sounds just fine!

Thanks again to the faithful readers, and to Judy and Steve for a great afternoon! Thanks for hanging in there with the technical difficulties; can't complain if you don't pay.

Roadkill:
Coyote
Deer
Possum
Rock Dove
Deadbeat Boyfriend (pending)

Live:
ATV Nation - there were all of these dust clouds, and they all traced back to someone on something combining petro and testostero in dangerous combinations... look for ATV rider on the Roadkill list, soon!
Beautiful fully green Ochotillo, must have rained there as well.
We were warned so many times about Elk crossing, Elk danger, Elk everything - but nothing. I'm ready to go to a petting zoo to see one by now.

Red Elk, if you're reading, you we're mightily on our minds today and I so wanted to steal you one of the great signs: ELK COUNTRY - BE ALERT.

Fuel Stop - just so we could stop in Seligman, AZ, on historic Route 66
216 miles
29.996 gallons
$89.96
2.999/gallon
7.20 mpg - which is oddly acceptable now... this all is included in the 'facts' section below.

Vanity Plates:
SOTAPOP
JIBIN
1BADCAD
DIANNE T
NEVAREZ
WOODY H
PEARRL
CS LS
MUNGUIA
B BEEP
RINAZ
REDJON
2ND2NON
TRUSMOM
LCA2002



Harve