Way more than a big hole

So nothing to do tonight to get ready for next week. In fact CaDiva spent the entire day preparing for another of my work celebrations. When one of the teams meets a quality measure my team feeds them lunch. Now that means CaDiva has to plan, plot, shop, cook, deliver, pickup, clean-up and collapse into a quivering mass. But I do wear a very blingish chef's hat and tell everyone how much I appreciate their effort.

But I want to stay in the habit of blogging until the trip is finished. As you can see from my earlier posts I have a little problem with sticking to this. I left you, in fact, on my way out to Big Brother's wedding, which was lovely and we adore the new wife, not to mention getting to visit again with the Nephew and two Nieces, and two Jr Nephews and a Niecelette, and the Nephews-in-law.

We drove out the southern route and returned the same way, making certain we had time for a side trip. We wanted to see the Grand Canyon. All the tour book information said the best time to go was off season to the south rim if we hoped to see anything but other tourists. And we wanted to see everything.

We picked Williams, AZ and the Grand Canyon Railway to carry us off on this new adventure. We got to the Railway Hotel a little later than we planned, but that is not new. Getting the two of us headed in one direction first thing in the morning is a little like putting a wet noodle up a feral large feline's alimentary canal.

But still it was a lovely room and we slept well. The package came with two dinners and two breakfasts as well as a lunch at the Grand Canyon. After we wandered down to breakfast we toured the the gift shop before we went down to the train depot. The train offers three services and we chose the deluxe car, sans children (sue us, we are crotchety little old ladies) but included music and meals.

It was so exciting to watch the countryside glide past us without either one of us watching the road. Well exciting for CaDiva, I passeng a lot and don't watch the road that much even when I drive. We laughed and ate and just chilled for an hour on our way to the southern rim. Our car steward was wonderfully informed. She kept the car alive with stories and laughter. She even took our National Park Passport to get it stamped since we didn't know if we could make it all the way to the visitor's center before the bus left for lunch.

I can't say much for the lunch, standard cafeteria fare but it got us on the tour in time. Now for our bus tour guide, he literally grew up on the south rim. Did you know they had a school there? It turns out the families who work at the Grand Canyon live there year round. Shopping is a bit difficult given that there there isn't a Piggly Wiggly or Food Lion in the vicinity. But still he loved his life and he shared it with us.  My favorite type of tour is being shown the wonders of a person's home as they describe their favorite places and memories. We got off at every stop, which is not as easy as it sounds for the two of us, but we didn't want to miss a bit of it. 

I know I have used the phrase Mother Nature overdose (I'll have to tell you about the Columbia River Gorge one day) but this was MNO to the Nth degree. As the day wound down, CaDiva rested at the train station waiting for our ride back.  I took the opportunity climbed up to the top of a mountain ... it may have been a foot hill...or possibly a ridge...could have been a hill (how the heck am I supposed to know I live a in prairie remember) but it was way up there and they had a gift shop. We didn't have nearly enough souvenirs yet. It wasn't as easy to shop as it is in most places since HRH instructed us not to bring anything back that said Arizona. Grand Canyon, California, or Colorado was ok. But she has political scruples and Arizona is a little further down her list than Florida was for us back in days of Dade County and Anita Bryant.

Even so, I made it back to the train station in time to catch our ride back to Williams. Our Steward was as good as her word and we had our second National Park stamp in our passport. 

I have to tell you, if you have had a long, exciting day of sight-seeing...end that day with a train ride. We were cradled back to the hotel with a cowboy singer interrupted only by a small train robbery.  We didn't even go looking for another place to eat or try the horse carriage rides (which we almost always try.) We had a great dinner in the hotel dining room and climbed slowly back to our room. I made an offer to the front desk clerk to chip in up to 5 bucks if Arizona would buy some extra air for the tourists. As much as I loved the trip the air is a bit thin from Needles to Fort Collins. 

The next morning we were getting ready to head out when the young man at the gas station came up and said, "Ma'am I think you may need a new rear tire. I'm a AAA station would you like me to put the car up on the rack and put on your spare." Ok, now last fall the dealership said we would need new tires but we could wait until summer and I guess driving cross-country may shorten that up a bit but we were not ready for this.

Well the young man was right....did you know your tire had a warning band that tells you when you have waited a couple thousand miles too long to buy new tires? And it wasn't on one tire, or two, all four tires were showing so much wear we had to have been carried on the wings of angels through those late nights into the mountains on the way out to California.

He quoted us a price that was about 50.00 less than the dealership told us we would pay and they could replace and balance the tires that day. So we left, a half day behind schedule but safe, riding a whole lot smoother and increased mileage about 6 miles per gallon. So all things taken together, we are two lucky ladies.