We were happy to leave Kingman Monday, April 30th as we didn't care for the heat at all. We had a short drive - only about 100 miles to Williams to get ready to ride the Grand Canyon Railway.
About 45 miles out of Williams, we felt a shimmy first, thought it was road vibration and then heard a big noise and knew something was wrong. We pulled over and the rear passenger side tire on the truck had lost all its tread. It was still aired up, but strips of tread littered the verge, and the back quarter panel of the truck was pretty messed up from the flying tread.
We had to unhitch the trailer so we could jack up the truck, and of course, traffic was whizzing by at 70 mph, so we had to be pretty careful. Jeff set out some emergency cones and most of the traffic would move over to the left hand lane, but occasionally they wouldn't and the Airstream would shake like a wet dog as the truck went by. Jeff got the
spare on and aired up (he loves his compressor!), and we were back on the road again. I was driving since his blood sugar had dropped and of course, we were a little antsy with only the spare on. We weren't too far from Seligman, so I took the turn off into town and then narrowly missed running into a car turning into the main street there. Thank goodness for evasive driving from the other car and strong brakes on the truck and trailer.
We were ready to take advantage of the relaxed atmosphere in Williams, and the first thing we noticed was the coolness of the air. The RV Park is quite new - everything is paved and clean and quite close enough to the depot and hotel to walk or ride a bike although they do run a shuttle. They have a great package - pay for a coach class train ticket and get two nights at the RV park free. This also includes access to the hotel amenities - pool and hot tub which we definitely took advantage of.
Our first job after setting up was to find a tire place which had been recommended at the RV park desk. We had been planning to replace two tires anyway - just did it sooner than later. We'll wait til we get to Texas to get an estimate on the body damage on the truck since it is drivable.
The soak in the hot tub melted away all the stress of the day. Got to say, we've been really lucky - haven't had stressful days much at all in the last year.
The next morning we took Madison over to the Pet Resort for her day while we were on the train. The Pet Resort is very nice and clean with individual runs for each dogs and they even have sunny windows for the cats to lie in.
Before the train started, we attended the gunfight at the depot
 Gunfight at Canyon Corral |
 The Cowboy, the Cowgirl and the Poop |
and was very funny.We then boarded the train and passed by the train yard where we could see some of the really old train cars.
 Old Train cars |
 Nobody can do it like a steam train |
. The train ride was fun. They have entertainers who come and sing and the conductor was quite good as well. We had a bunch of junior high students on our car, and at first, I was dismayed, but they were members of the junior honor society and were fairly well behaved (for junior high.)
We immediately went up to El Tovar when the train arrived because we had promised ourselves a splurge for lunch. The food was wonderful as usual although it had been years since we had eaten at El Tovar. We found a couple of postcards for Jean-Luc and Madeleine and here's Jeff writing to Madeleine in El Tovar
 Grandpa writes a postcard |
We then saw the Canyon for the first time in years. We kept our eyes down on the pavement until we had walked to the edge, then raised them for our first look in a long time. WOW!
 Golly! What a gully! |
 Glorious technicolor |
Here's Jeff on the edge and Suzanne on the brink The architecture of Hopi House and El Tovar perched on the rim are beautiful to see. Finally, the sun began to peek through the clouds The train left at 4 p.m. and we enjoyed the ride again. Just outside of Williams, the train slowed down and outside the window, we could see the train had been stopped by train robbers
 Train robbery |
The whole train ride was a wonderful experience and highly recommended
