Day 9

 After a great dinner and a good nights sleep we are off on our train ride to the Grand Canyon.   We rode the Grand Canyon Railroad  out of Williams, AZ to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Before our train ride we went and watched the cowboy show.




Love the midget cowboy!  He was my fave!!!


Here are the cowboys seeing us off on our venture to the canyon



We learned fun facts during our ride.

Fun Fact #1

Did you know that they used 480,000 railroad spikes to lay the tracks from Williams, AZ to the Grand Canyon. Which is  63 miles of track.  Each spike was laid by a 3 man crew. One had a contraption that would hold the spike in place for it to be drove in. The other two were the Drivers with the hammers and it was supposed to take three strikes to put a spike into the ground.

Fun Fact # 2

Do you know what makes the train make the "Clickity Clack" sound?  I did not until today.  There are spaces put into the tract for expansion and contraction of the rails and those spaces cause the train to make the "Clickity Clack" sound.

The Diesel locomotive took us on our journey today. There were numerous classes of cars to ride in.  I told everyone that if we were on the Titanic we would be in the lower class where Jack was. They all laughed and said it was fine.  Then dad and took our 5 car journey to get sarsaparilla floats (rootbeer float to us at home) and found out we were actually middle class because we had AC.  We walked through car that only had windows for air and slightly cushioned seats.  They refer to these cars as the nostalgic cars.  I am glad I was not feeling like I wanted the full on 1901 experience when I booked these. I think everyone would have killed me, because it was a scorching 95 degrees at the canyon today.





Most of the lines are gone, but the insulators and poles are still there from the telegraph lines.



Once we arrive at the Grand Canyon we boarded a bus for "The Grand Tour"

First stop was Yovapai - translation "People of the sun".  The size of the Grand Canyon you just can not explain how huge this place is. It is on average about 10 miles wide. In total in encompasses 278 miles there are a total of 11 tribes associated with the canyon.




Couple of Ravens hanging out in the shade. Clearly they are smarter than we are!!!






This is the only place that you can see the cottonwood trees at the bottom of the canyon that is the camp for the brave souls who ride the donkeys down and stay the night. The depth of the canyon is about 1 mile deep and the temperature is 30 degrees warmer than what it is at the top of the rim. Current temperature at top is 95 degrees so at the bottom it is 125 degrees. 


On our ride to the next stop the driver was explaining the different trees of the region.  The tallest and oldest being the Ponderosa Pines.  They grow to be about 200 ft. tall and they are kinda of a smart tree. as they age they develop a skin on them that has an orange tint to it and when they have that they are sort of flame retardant.  The tree has also figured out that new limbs on lower parts of the body are not flame retardant and can cause them to catch on fire so they kill them.  They don't have any limbs for like the bottom 50 ft. of the tree. He talked about a bunch of other trees but they did not impress me that much and I can't remember their names.




Look its an Elk








Second stop Yaki point - So I can not find out the meaning of this word but it is funny what did come up with Googles  It means "cooked over direct heat" in Japanese.  I can't help but feel that this is a very appropriate definition for the word and the day today.


So the notes on here are trails that some people are crazy enough to go out here and hike.  I am good with my air conditioned bus dropping me off and me taking pics. I do not have any interest in hiking in 125 degree weather.



Pictures at the point




Now back to the train for the ride to Williams, AZ




Oh No there was an inflatable cow put on the tracks to make the train stop and we were robbed.




U.S. Marshall Blister showed up after the robbers were gone and told us without a receipt for goods that were stolen there was nothing he could do.





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