Part Seven of a 35 Day Journey

In the last episode, Bob had walked my feet off in Las Vegas.  The last day there, we got back to the truck and camper after a full day in Vegas and drove about 4 miles to a Wal Mart.  We had decided not to pay for another night at Sam's Town RV when we couldn't use their hook-ups.

The next morning we headed in the direction of the Grand Canyon.  Bob hadn't been there since 1955 and I had never been there, so we were both excited about this destination.   We both have a "Goodwill" attraction (you never know what treasure you'll find there) so we stopped at the Goodwill in Vegas on our way out of town. Actually,  Bob wanted a bag (like a gym bag ) to put the electrical cord and water hose in, so they would store easier in the camper.  He found one for 50 cents and it easily stored the long electrical cord.  (He did find another one, I believe at the Goodwill in Pasadena, CA for the water hose.) 

Anyway, after his big purchase, we continued on, stopping at the Railroad Pass Casino in Henderson, Nevada for lunch.   After lunch we came to beautiful Lake Mead and Hoover Dam.  We were able to get off to the side of the road as we approached Lake Mead and we so wanted to stop and visit the different displays at the dam, but there's a lot of construction going on  and there was no place for the truck in any of the visitor parking lots.  All the pictures I took there were from the truck as we slowly passed by.  

We drove all day passing very few other cars and not many towns.  At about 6:30pm we arrived in the town of Seligman, AZ.   It was a delightful historic little town on the famous Route 66.  I've always had an interest in Route 66 so this was fun for me.  We stopped at the General Store and after talking with the man running the store, found out he was originally from Washington state.  (It's a small world)   I bought some postcards here and we continued on.   It was surprisingly cold and very windy here.  So, I got in the camper before we left and changed from summer clothes into winter clothes.  Sometime later we reached the town of Williams, AZ where we intended to gas up.  Williams is another full blown Route 66 town and I went into one gift shop to ask about a campground or RV park and I tell you...I could have stayed in there for hours.   The nice lady there directed us to a campground that is the starting point for the Grand Canyon Railroad.  When Bob stopped at the office, the man said that the campground was full but we were more than welcome to park for free in their overflow lot.  So that's what we did.  He went to the furthest corner of the lot to get away from a couple of RV's that were running generators and parked.   We settled in for the night and about an hour and a half later we were jolted awake by a very long Burlington Northern freight train.  We were like 1/2 block from the tracks...oh my gosh....it scared us so bad.   He immediately got up and moved the truck to the very other far end of the lot and we settled in again.  I heard three more trains during the night but at least we weren't in the "de-rail zone" like we had been originally.  I love trains and they don't really bother me much...but if one of those trains had de-railed we would have been toast.

We were up and back on the road about 9:30am the next morning and stopped later at a very pretty area for a hot-dog lunch a few miles from the Grand Canyon entrance.   I  always eat breakfast first thing in the morning (so I always have my box of Kashi Crunch cereal & milk ) Bob on the other hand just drinks coffee for a couple hours and eats later.  So the hot dog lunch was only about 3 hours after my bowl of cereal and bagel.

Soon after we entered the gates at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon National park.

Until next time.......Linda