Travel Log

We left early to start our drive over to the Grand Canyon. We did have to stop at Walmart again to pick up some Cowboy boots we had reserved for Bess (the Cowboy boot saga began when Bess found a pair she loved a few Walmarts ago but they didn’t have her size, they did have Thea’s and since they like to match all their clothes we ended up buying Thea a pair but then couldn’t find them in Bess’ size at any subsequent Walmart. We realised we could reserve them online to collect but needed a US telephone number to make a Walmart account. To obtain this we had to get an eSIM and then US phone number, then open the Walmart account, then struggled to pay as we had no US bank card, managed to get it to take PayPal but then we’re almost stuck at the last hurdle when we couldn’t download the app to arrange to click and collect. Luckily customer service stepped in and located the parcel resulting in a very happy Bess!)

We drove via Williams to experience some route66 memorabilia. This would be a fun town to come back to as there are some museums and theme parks for the kids which we didn’t have time to do.

We finally arrived at the South Rim mid afternoon and did some view points and visitor centres before checking into our rather basic hotel, luckily we were there just one night.

We watched a magnificent thunder storm from the rim (the one place you are not meant to go in thunder and lightning) we felt reassured by all the photographers that had set up their tripods but did dash inside when a lightening strike hit very close to us and our skin was tingling with static. Sadly we didn’t catch any lightning on camera. Once the storm had passed we stayed for sunset, it turned out to be a beautiful evening. Unfortunately everyone else in the park was also watching the sunset so by the time we got to the food court the crowds all arrived at the same time and the food options quickly dwindled. Despite the rather basic accommodation and food (fairly typical of national parks) the views were magnificent and hopefully the kids grasped the scale of it.

Accommodation:

https://www.grandcanyonlodges.com/lodging/maswik-lodge/

Route:

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Grand+Canyon+Village,+AZ,+USA/Williams,+AZ,+USA/Sedona,+AZ,+USA/@35.4608098,-112.5890245,9z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m20!4m19!1m5!1m1!1s0x8733174f95ffe325:0xb8ccc2749a229ea1!2m2!1d-112.1401108!2d36.0544445!1m5!1m1!1s0x87329ee95301a555:0x1da5e7c7cdc05386!2m2!1d-112.1910031!2d35.2494566!1m5!1m1!1s0x872da132f942b00d:0x5548c523fa6c8efd!2m2!1d-111.7609896!2d34.8697395!3e0?entry=ttu