After a decent breakfast of blueberry pancakes prepared by our B&B's owner Ron (by the way - the B&B Legacies in Williams, Arizona is for sale) we stopped by the information center in Williams, which is located on the famous Route 66 (remember the old TV show anyone?) to get our Grand Canyon prepaid entry pass & some maps. A pleasant surprise awaited us. Seems that now that yours truly is in the "senior" category we were able to buy a lifetime pass to all of America's National Parks for the princely sum of only $10. That gets us free entry into any National Park for the rest of our years & today alone it save us $15 since the usual entrance fee to the Grand Canyon is $25. America's National Parks system is fantastic and I'm sure we'll use this lifetime membership many more times over the next several years.
It's pretty hard to say anything about the Grand Canyon that hasn't already been written, or put up photos that haven't already been posted somewhere on the Internet, so let's just let it be said that yes, the Grand Canyon is truly awesome. If you haven't been you should put it on your bucket list of things to do. Don't wait too long though - who knows - it may only be around for another 25 million years or so!
Oh, okay, if you insist - here's a panoramic view of the canyon.
Leaving the park we headed northeast for about 180 miles to our next destination of Monument Valley, Utah. That's 180 miles of sagebrush, light traffic, fairly flat roads, and a few spectacular rock formations along the way. Oh, and did I mention sagebrush?
We'll take the jeep tour through the valley tomorrow morning before heading back to Flagstaff for a final night in Arizona before returning to San Francisco.Oh yeah - almost forgot the daily wine report. OH NO! There's nothing to report. The restaurant here at Goulding's Lodge doesn't serve any wine or beer. Well, they do have non-alcohol wine (I call that grape juice). The waitress reminded us that we are on a Navajo Indian reservation and reservation facilities are not allowed to sell any alcoholic beverages. Ah well, guess the old liver deserves a night of rest.
By the way, did you know that during World War II the military used Navajo Code Talkers to transmit messages in the Navajo language? This had the advantage of being an extremely fast method of encrypted communication. The code was never broken by the Japanese, who were mystified by the sounds they intercepted. Of course, I've also met people in Japan who are mystified by some of the sounds I make!
Till tomorrow gentle readers, may your dreams be happy & your hearts be young.
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