The next morning we packed up the bags and the kids and made our next goal Flagstaff AZ. Half way through New Mexico we were getting sick of being in the car. We saw a sign about a dinosaur museum coming up so we took the exit to check it out just for the hell of it. Turned out to be a cool little museum! Ryker was super happy to be out of the car seat and able to move around. This place even had a lab where they are working to uncover more bone from rocks, we could watch the scientists work through the window! They waved at Ryker and he waved back! We bought him a Teradactyl puppet and then reluctantly got back into the car to keep on going. We drove and drove and drove until it was almost midnight. We didn't quite make it to Flagstaff and had to find a pace to sleep so Super 8 in Winslow AZ became our home for the evening. It wasn't the most spectacular place, but it was a bed for the night and that's all we care about! In the morning we realized this town was an old town off of Route 66 so we took a picture of the Route 66 sign!
On the road again. Next goal was Reno, NV and a good goal it was, too bad we didn't make it that far. This day was full of adventure! We decided on a whim, since we were close to the Grand Canyon, that we would try and stop. I started looking up info on my phone while we had service and I saw the info for the Skywalk. On the website it says it costs about $26 a person to go, aahhh we can swing that. We figured it was about 50 miles off our path, but worth it. So onward we went. On the way this white Altima decides to pass us with oncoming traffic and takes his sweet time. The cars coming towards us had to move off the road as not to hit him. Alex had slowed way down to let him in, but noooo, he decided to continue on to pass the truck in front of us! We couldn't believe the stupidity of this guy. What an asshole! No care for any of the people on the road let alone the passengers in his vehicle. We watched him continue to pass car after car on up the road. Alex was so mad at this guys complete disregard for others on the road. He would have caused a head on collision. About 10 minutes later, we see the sign for our turn off. It's not very well marked and we just about missed it. We commented about how we hoped the white altima wasn't going to the canyon too and if so we hoped he missed the turn off. We kept on our way after about 15 miles or so the road just stops and turns into a washed out bumpy gravel road. It felt like we were going the wrong way or we had missed something. There weren't anymore signs about the Grand Canyon. It just felt weird. We kept on driving only going about 20 miles an hour at the most, then low and behold the white altima showed up on our ass again. This road was windy and didn't give him much chance to pass. He wanted to stay on our butt, so Alex gave him a good shower of gravel any chance he could! :) He backed off a bit, but sure enough as soon as a chance opened up he passed us again.
We finally arrive at the parking lot in the middle of nowhere. Everything was guarded and the road became blocked off. We were told to park and then go to the visitors center to get our entry pass. The edge of the parking lot had about 15 large commuter busses and about half of Japan visiting. The Visitor Center looked like a giant white garbage bag had been shaped into a weird looking dome. It felt like we were in the X-files or something. We go inside and find out that the entry pass is $50 a person which is mainly a bus ticket to get to the Skywalk plus 3 other Indian artifact sites, then you pay the $26 to go onto the skywalk. We're talking almost $80 a person and that's with the military discount! ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? The land is privately owned by the Hualapai Indians so we are not allowed to drive up and see the Grand Canyon or go to the skywalk ourselves. UGGGG so we walked out moped all the way to the car and drove back down the awful gravel road to the highway. On the way back out we saw a bull taking a shit on the side of the road. We thought "Yep, that's how we feel too!"
~TO BE CONTINUED~
