We had our tickets for the train to and from the Grand Canyon, but they were for two days hence, because there was rain predicted for the next day, and it was going to be fairly cold, too. So we decided to splurge on our Grand Canyon interlude, and took our hotel room in Williams for two more nights. They were right about the cold, and in fact, the rain turned out to be two short downpours of hail during the afternoon. We were happy enough to be undercover, and the hail wasn’t large enough to cause any damage to the Scamp or the van.
We continued our high living days with trout dinners at the
hotel restaurant, which was decorated with kachina figures all around. That and
lots of copper. The trout were delicious (how could they not be!) and our first
gray day in awhile passed quickly.
The Grand Canyon train was waiting for us at the station
The next morning we were happy to see sunshine and then the
temperatures warmed up just enough so that it was pleasantly cool. We headed off
to the train station in town; we were supposed to be there by 9:00 am for a
9:30 departure, and they lured passengers in on time with the promise of a Wild
West show. Well, there were horses and cowboys, but there weren’t any trick
riders or fancy shooting. Still, it was amusing. A motley crew, know as the
Cataract Creek Gang, had decided to con a tourist in a poker game that was
supposed to win them enough to buy breakfast. Then the marshal showed up . . .
and everyone got shot, but recovered quickly. It was a silly send-off for our
train ride.
The Wild West Show
The trip took a little over 2 hours to go 63 miles
northward; we were entertained by strolling musicians and the sights out the
window, including wild horses, prairie dogs, and a herd of resting elk, as well
as scenery that changed from mile to mile. Everyone waves to the train, from
folks on their porches in Williams as we left to the track gang we encountered
workin’ on the railroad about halfway there.
A strolling musician on the northbound train
When we got to Grand Canyon Village, we walked up through
the Bright Angel Lodge to the Rim Trail and headed west. It was not uncrowded,
but it was not crazy busy there, either. We hiked for awhile, admiring the views
along the rim, until we found a nice place to sit and eat our sandwiches and
cookies, overlooking the Canyon. Though I took plenty of photographs, they
don’t really do it justice, but it was intriguing to think we were looking
about 18 miles across it to the north rim, and who knows how far down, down,
down into the canyon.
Views from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon
After lunch we continued our walk west, eventually turning
and walking back the way we had come and beyond, up to the El Tovar hotel and
the nearby Hopi House art gallery. The woman who was the conductor on our train
car had told us she had run the Hopi House for many years, and the way she
described it made me want to see the place, so I went in while Mike continued
walking along the rim. The Hopi House was filled with beautiful art, woven rugs
and gorgeous pottery, including the black on black Pueblo pottery pioneered by
Maria Martinez in the early part of the twentieth century. I had only
seen photos of the pottery in art books before seeing some in person when we
visited Mesa Verde a couple of years ago, but at the Hopi House they had many
examples of it, as well as red on red and horsehair pottery. All lovely to look
at. And the Hopi house was an actual pueblo, built around 1900, as a place
where the Hopi tribe members could make and sell art to tourists. It was very
intriguing to see a pueblo actually being used as a shelter. The doorways are
crazy low, and the floors were slanted, but it was still an impressive
building!
I met up with Mike outside the pueblo and we continued to
walk east on the Rim Trail. We saw a piece of petrified wood that was cool, and we also went in Verkamp’s Curios, a souvenir shop that originally opened in a tent
about 125 years ago. Joseph G. Verkamp was a brother-in-law of those Babbitt
Brothers from Price Hill that made their fortunes in Flagstaff and Williams,
and apparently they worked with Verkamp to provide him with Native American art
to sell, which the Babbitts had taken in trade for the more mundane supplies
like flour and coffee that they sold.
in front of the Bright Angel hotel
Then it seemed like a good idea to head back to the train.
We made it back in time and settled in for the late afternoon trip back to
Williams. There was entertainment on the way back, too; more strolling
musicians, and as we got towards town, a bit of excitement. Those rotten members of the Cataract Creek Gang returned on
horseback, stopped the train, and proceeded to board it and rob the
passengers—or at least demand tips from them. The marshal showed up just in
time, before there was any shooting, but they did make off with the tips. Then,
just before we got to town, we were told to look out the train windows to see a
cow doing cartwheels. And there she was, cartwheeling down the prairie. No, I
wasn’t able to get a photo of that phenomenon; you’ll just have to go out and
see it for yourself.
The Great Grand Canyon Train Robbery
It was a long day, and we were worn out, so we slept well,
then got up and packed up, leaving our cushy digs at the Williams Inn and
heading first a bit east, back through Flagstaff yet again. The drive through town
from I-40 to US 89, which we would take north to Page, Arizona, follows Route
66 again, and I was amused to see we went through an area they call Western
Hills, complete with the Western Hills Motel & Restaurant. I wondered if the
Babbitts originally opened that place . . .
We got to Page before two o’clock in the afternoon, driving
along a scenic road on the edge of the Navajo reservation. The rock formations
are almost hypnotizing, as you drive past one after another. At one stop for
gas, we heard people speaking the Dine (Navajo) language to each other, which
was interesting.
Sandstone rock formations along US 89 on the way to Glen Canyon
Page is a town that sprang up first when they were building
the dam in Glen Canyon to create Lake Powell; now it is a small city that
benefits from there being water in the lake. Unfortunately, the water level has
been low for several years, and it is very low now—and expected to get lower
through the summer. We found the Beehives campground we were looking for just
on the other side of the dam itself, and we got a nice inexpensive primitive
campsite for three nights. The view from
our campsite (below) clearly shows how the campground got its name. And we had a view
to the east that let us see just a bit of Glen Canyon and Lake Powell.
It was really, really hot while we were camped near Page—in
the mid 90s every day. It was cool in the morning, and also very pleasant as the
sun goes down, but it’s too hot to think straight in the heat of the day. And
the campground we were in did not have shade—or water. We had nearly 5 gallons
of water with us, but we were conserving it to the point that we might have
gotten dehydrated one day. We were definitely not feeling well, and just laid
around the camper until it cooled down. Feeling better the next day, as evening
approached we did head out to see some of Glen Canyon and Lake Powell. We went
to several different lookouts that gave us views of the canyon, the dam, the
Colorado river, weird and interesting rock formations, and then drove down Lake
Shore Drive along Lake Powell.
Dinosaur tracks that were removed before
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