Ramey Road Trip Day 19 & 20: Grand Canyon Adventures
Today we are heading to the Grand Canyon for two whole days!! The morning started off as usual just having breakfast and getting ready to go since we all wanted to get going as soon as possible. On the ride over we made a couple of stops so we could see some cool attractions. The first was to the Wigwam Motel, if you have ever seen the movie Cars this was the motel that the Cozy Cone was based off of. It was one of the first original motels along Route 66. The next stop we made was to Winslow, Arizona to take a pictures with the "Standing on a Corner" statue (if you know what that is you get points because I still have no idea). Our last stop before getting to the Grand Canyon was to the Meteor Crater, this off-the-freeway stop was unplanned but it was really cool. Basically as the name suggests this was the site of a meteor landing, so there was a huge museum and three different places where you could look out onto the giant crater. It was really neat and I want to take my little brother out there sometime because he loves sciencey things like that. Then we headed out to get to the Grand Canyon.
Luckily we were already in Arizona so we didn't have to try and cross through a state in order to reach our stopping point. The drive was only like maybe five hours? I don't remember, I was probably asleep.
Anyways, eventually we got to our campground which was pretty nice even though it didn't have a pool. The campground was a part of the National Park so everything around it was all connected. It was actually pretty cool, there were free shuttle buses that would take you wherever you needed to go in the park. There were also a lot of different gift shops, restaurants, and various outlooks.
On our first day there we didn't do a whole lot of exploring since we were saving that for the next day. But we did go up to one of the restaurants for dinner and see some of the gift shops; the really cool one was inside of a stone house called the Hopi house. For dinner we went to the Bright Angel lodge which was a pretty good restaurant, there is another lodge you can eat at called El Tovar but that place is very fancy (they even have a dress code) and you needed a reservation to get in.
After dinner we walked around a bit more and saw one of the studios before we headed back to the RV. Unfortunately the National Park is a no hookup campground, or at least ours wasn't, and you could only have your generators running during certain hours. So instead of staying inside Jared, CC, and I went out to attempt to watch a meteor shower. CC and I saw a couple but Jared missed most of them. Then after a bit CC went inside and then me and Jared, and we headed straight to bed.
The next day was pretty much a free-for-all. The rest of the family made breakfast and set off early but Jared and I wanted to sleep in, so we slept and it was good. Once we woke up we got our stuff together and headed out. Jared was so excited because there was a fanny pack with two water bottle holders on the side that we could use. So we put the sunscreen, some snacks, our map, and our chargers in it and we set off on our adventure.
Our first stop was the Marketplace to see if we wanted to buy any other snacks but we decided not to, the store was really cool though it had pretty much any camping gear you could ever want and more. Once we were done there we set off to go see the main visitor's center. Remember that passport that I told you about? Well if you decide to buy one, the Grand Canyon has seven different stamps that you can collect from the various places.
After that we went towards a new thing that we wanted to check out, the Shrine of the Ages. Unfortunately, we were very disappointed by it. We thought it was going to be like a museum or something, but no, it is the building where they host various religious services which is pretty cool just not what we wanted.
Then we headed to a place called the Village where we went to the other visitor's center to get a stamp. Then we decided to start a hike to go get some pictures so Jared and I hiked the Bright Angel trail. If you are a fan of hiking I recommend this trail, though it does come with a warning. The trail is very strenuous, especially during the summer when the heat at the bottom of the canyon can get up over 100 degrees. But the hike itself goes down from the rim all the way down to the river, if you are inexperienced and don't want to hike all that way I am pretty sure the mule rides go all the way down (we didn't do that since it was expensive).
Eventually we hiked back up and headed out on another adventure, this time to a place called Hermit's Rest. This is the last stop on the South Rim (the rim we were on, you can go to the North Rim too I just don't know anything about it since we weren't there), and the farthest west you can go on the canyon. It was pretty ordinary just a really neat looking gift shop with a snack stand, but the views up there and on the way up there were gorgeous. Another hike for the very adventurous is the South Rim trail; this hike will take you from Hermit's Rest to I am pretty sure the other end of the park by the ranger's station (I could be wrong, I will fact check later), and as the name implies the trail hugs the rim so you can see down into the canyon pretty much the whole time.
While we were up there we got snacks since Jared was making me eat that day (I had a tummy ache) but then we headed back to the bus to take the long drive back. We made our way to the park visitors center so we could go to the Geology Museum. This was really neat, it told all about the formation of the canyon and what the future holds for it. After a while we headed out again so we could start heading back to the RV. We stopped at a gift shop so I could buy a souvenir and at the Market so Jared could get ice cream.
The way back was very long since we had to try and catch like three different buses, plus Jared got us on the wrong bus so it took even longer. But eventually we made it back, we tried to find a geocache but it was too far out of the way for us to walk so we went to the RV,
We hung out for a bit and then it was dinner time, so we ate and then after more hanging out we got into bed once again very tired.
Luckily we were already in Arizona so we didn't have to try and cross through a state in order to reach our stopping point. The drive was only like maybe five hours? I don't remember, I was probably asleep.
Anyways, eventually we got to our campground which was pretty nice even though it didn't have a pool. The campground was a part of the National Park so everything around it was all connected. It was actually pretty cool, there were free shuttle buses that would take you wherever you needed to go in the park. There were also a lot of different gift shops, restaurants, and various outlooks.
On our first day there we didn't do a whole lot of exploring since we were saving that for the next day. But we did go up to one of the restaurants for dinner and see some of the gift shops; the really cool one was inside of a stone house called the Hopi house. For dinner we went to the Bright Angel lodge which was a pretty good restaurant, there is another lodge you can eat at called El Tovar but that place is very fancy (they even have a dress code) and you needed a reservation to get in.
After dinner we walked around a bit more and saw one of the studios before we headed back to the RV. Unfortunately the National Park is a no hookup campground, or at least ours wasn't, and you could only have your generators running during certain hours. So instead of staying inside Jared, CC, and I went out to attempt to watch a meteor shower. CC and I saw a couple but Jared missed most of them. Then after a bit CC went inside and then me and Jared, and we headed straight to bed.
The next day was pretty much a free-for-all. The rest of the family made breakfast and set off early but Jared and I wanted to sleep in, so we slept and it was good. Once we woke up we got our stuff together and headed out. Jared was so excited because there was a fanny pack with two water bottle holders on the side that we could use. So we put the sunscreen, some snacks, our map, and our chargers in it and we set off on our adventure.
Our first stop was the Marketplace to see if we wanted to buy any other snacks but we decided not to, the store was really cool though it had pretty much any camping gear you could ever want and more. Once we were done there we set off to go see the main visitor's center. Remember that passport that I told you about? Well if you decide to buy one, the Grand Canyon has seven different stamps that you can collect from the various places.
After that we went towards a new thing that we wanted to check out, the Shrine of the Ages. Unfortunately, we were very disappointed by it. We thought it was going to be like a museum or something, but no, it is the building where they host various religious services which is pretty cool just not what we wanted.
Then we headed to a place called the Village where we went to the other visitor's center to get a stamp. Then we decided to start a hike to go get some pictures so Jared and I hiked the Bright Angel trail. If you are a fan of hiking I recommend this trail, though it does come with a warning. The trail is very strenuous, especially during the summer when the heat at the bottom of the canyon can get up over 100 degrees. But the hike itself goes down from the rim all the way down to the river, if you are inexperienced and don't want to hike all that way I am pretty sure the mule rides go all the way down (we didn't do that since it was expensive).
Eventually we hiked back up and headed out on another adventure, this time to a place called Hermit's Rest. This is the last stop on the South Rim (the rim we were on, you can go to the North Rim too I just don't know anything about it since we weren't there), and the farthest west you can go on the canyon. It was pretty ordinary just a really neat looking gift shop with a snack stand, but the views up there and on the way up there were gorgeous. Another hike for the very adventurous is the South Rim trail; this hike will take you from Hermit's Rest to I am pretty sure the other end of the park by the ranger's station (I could be wrong, I will fact check later), and as the name implies the trail hugs the rim so you can see down into the canyon pretty much the whole time.
While we were up there we got snacks since Jared was making me eat that day (I had a tummy ache) but then we headed back to the bus to take the long drive back. We made our way to the park visitors center so we could go to the Geology Museum. This was really neat, it told all about the formation of the canyon and what the future holds for it. After a while we headed out again so we could start heading back to the RV. We stopped at a gift shop so I could buy a souvenir and at the Market so Jared could get ice cream.
The way back was very long since we had to try and catch like three different buses, plus Jared got us on the wrong bus so it took even longer. But eventually we made it back, we tried to find a geocache but it was too far out of the way for us to walk so we went to the RV,
We hung out for a bit and then it was dinner time, so we ate and then after more hanging out we got into bed once again very tired.
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