GRAND CANYON WEST (cont'd.)

Just a continuation of my vacation, which I have been too busy to finish this week. Yeah, I'm busy, but don't care!

Picture 1: Eaglepoint. The Hualapai Indian Tribe believe the eagle is their protector, and as you can see from this picture, there is a pretty clearcut stone eagle in the mountainside.

Pictures 2-5: Guano Point. Another stopping point on our "tour." You can see the Colorado River if you look closely in one of the pictures, a muddy ribbon of a stream right now. The red rock formations were climbable, which many people did do. Me? Afraid of heights, and while I readily went out on the Skywalk, no way was I climbing too high on these things.

Guano Point is also where we got a buffet meal, a hearty one consisting of shredded barbequed beef, baked chicken, cornbread, beans, coleslaw, and peach cobbler. There was also a place here to buy handmade jewelry and watch as it was being made.

After this, it was back on the bus and back to our car. When we arrived back at the starting point, we were very glad we had gotten there early. Now, the ticket counters and gift shop counters had long lines of people waiting to buy tour tickets and/or purchase souveniers. I had waited to buy things until after our tour, and now regretted that decision. I had to stand in line for more than 30 minutes to get my souveniers, and I got increasingly annoyed at the people cutting in and out of line--to get a bottle of water or an ice cream bar, hooking up with someone they weren't with initially, just making the line that much longer. And then there were the many people who just couldn't accept the fees set for the "tour" and Skywalk. There were a few options, and the cheapest, of course, was the $49.95 (plus tax--I have to stress this because apparently the tax thing was a big deal to some people) for the bus ride/tour/lunch and $25 for the Skywalk. It was almost as if they argued long enough they could negotiate their own package deal or price.

As we headed back down the unpaved, bumpy, dusty road out of the Canyon, a long line of cars was now heading in. These people were in for a long wait, and it looked more like I expected it to look earlier in the day.

The weather had heated up nicely by now, and was expected to be warmer yet as we headed back south. I was looking forward to that!

Our destination again was back to Tucson, but it was likely we would not make it that far that day. We were both tired after our early rising and long day otherwise, and three basketball playoff games were on, something Don wanted to watch. We had no overnight plans made ahead of time, just figured on driving until we found somewhere to stop.

Instead of taking the same road we took to Flagstaff, I convinced Don to take Highway 93, a more scenic, and seemingly a more direct, route back to points south. It was very scenic, less traffic, and not really moutainous, so all in all a little quicker than had we taken Highway 17. I was happy for this change, and the best place we found to stop at the soonest then was Wickenburg.