In 2008, I spent 2 months driving across the USA from Maryland to California, taking the southern route. Check out my road trip adventures.
I am so glad I got a chance to see and experience the bucket list Grand Canyon. This was a pretty short trip, less than a day. It was pretty much the cheapest possible way to see it, since I already had a National Parks pass and I stayed the night an hour away. The lodge onsite was very cool, and I definitely had the obligatory cup of hot chocolate there and checked out the souvenirs.
You may have heard the sob story that I lost all content in my previous blog, but I found a word document on my computer where I had written down some adventures and Grand Canyon was one of the lucky few places I had chronicled! Here are my own words, unedited, from 2008.
We drove from Sedona to the Grand Canyon (South Rim), hitting some snowy spots as we cruised through even higher altitudes around 6900 ft. We figured out that you can stay in the town of Williams, AZ for much cheaper than the GC area. It would have been fun to camp up there but it was still far too cold and snowy. We drove straight to the GC, getting there around 3pm. We had plenty of time to see what we wanted to see, including the sunset around 6:30pm. I think we got some amazing photos here. We dressed in our winter coats and hats and were still freezing. At some points, it was snowing, and other points were totally sunny. We stopped at the IMAX theater on our way out to see the most-viewed IMAX movie, of course about the wonders of the GC. We got back to our Motel 6 West in Williams (1 hr south of GC) in the evening and were pleasantly surprised by the room. Motel 6 has upgraded quite a bit. It was one of the nicest budget motels I’ve ever stayed in. I recommend this hotel for GC goers who don’t mind staying an hour south. It worked out great for us because we were headed out the next day to Vegas anyway.
