What we saw at the Grand Canyon

NOTHING.

That's the short answer... The long answer is that we headed to the South rim of the Grand Canyon and made it to the park entrance around noon. Unfortunately cars were backed up a long way from the entrance. We found out that the park staff was doing a controlled burn of area vegetation and the smoke was making the road in to the park very dangerous, so they were escorting a few cars at a time past the smoke.

We decided that our schedule would allow us to try again tomorrow so we turned around and headed back the way we came. We stopped at the National Geographic visitors center and watched the IMAX movie of the Grand Canyon. Julie and I thought it was really cool, but Bev and Katie had a hard time watching some parts. We also did a bit of trinket shopping and then found our motel for the night.

This was the one place on our trip where we had made reservations. We spotted this place while researching our trip and thought it would be pretty cool. They have a few old railroad cars that they have converted to hotel rooms and the info we found made it look like an interesting place to stay.
Here's one of two cabooses they have converted into motel rooms:

Unfortunately we waited a bit too long to make reservations and the cabooses weren't available. We ended up with a room in an old Pullman car:

There are three rooms in this car and they aren't quite as nice as the rooms in the cabooses. We are all a bit underwhelmed at the experience, however, as the park is a bit old and it could use some freshening up. Compared to the Best Western that we stayed in last night, this place is a dive and the room actually cost more. I guess the novelty of staying in an old railroad car is worth something, but I think we overpaid...

We did get a treat at sundown, however:


Oh, and for all you Michiganders that are suffering in the heat and rain - I just wanted to let you know that we are now having absolutely marvelous weather. This part of the country is at a bit higher elevation so the high temperature today was about 81 with no humidity to speak of. It's cooling of quickly now that the sun went down and I'm sitting on the deck outside our room with a jacket on. Jealous yet? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!