Thursday, August 3, 2023

3 Aug 2023 - Arrived at Grand Canyon + Stats

 


History be made today!  I finally touched down at the Grand Canyon.  Doreen has been here before, back during her childhood travel days with her folks, but this is a first for me!  The trip today was pretty easy.  We departed Monument Valley at 0840 hrs and headed south towards Kayenta, where we got our windshield fixed.  Then west on US 160 again until we got to Tonalea where we stopped for a bit.  The scenery changed as we headed south and west.  Less red soil and rocks and more tan soil and rocks.  Still a lot of soil and rocks LOL, but still beautiful scenery.  I love this country!








Just past Tuba City we turned south on US 89 for a few miles and then west at Cameron on US 64, over the Little Colorado River, and on into the Grand Canyon National Park.



Notice the black Dodge Challenger in the left lane here

So the black Dodge Challenger..  That car played hop scotch with us all the way down here today.  There must have been 10 cars and trucks in line and he blew by all of us like we were standing still.  We kept on going and later, here he comes again!  You could blind fold me and drive a Challenger by and I would be able to recognize it from the sound!  Anyone remember the 1971 movie 'Vanishing Point' with Barry Newman?  His 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T, with a 440 cubic-inch V-8 was white, but each time I saw that car today that movie came into my mind!  I have been a MOPAR fan my entire life, and I have owned a whole lot of cars, mostly MOPARs during my tenure, but the Challenger has been elusive.  It is my bucket list car.  My problem is as long as we are camping I have no where to keep one.  So it is likely an 'after camping' thing for me.  The left hand wants a 1970 Challenger like Kowalski drove, but my right hand wants a smokin' Hellcat!  Oh well, some day...

We entered the Grand Canyon National Park and it was not long until the canyon came into view, and it was awesome!  


A beautiful drive through the park!

A slice of Grand Canyon in the background!

Wow!  Amazing views!


 We continued on US 64 but there was obviously something going on at the upcoming viewpoint so we slowed to a stop and here it what we saw!



Hey, it is lunch time!  What's the big deal?!

Soon we turned south on US 64 and we arrived at the Grand Canyon Camper Village RV park.  This will work out great as the park is very close to the Grand Canyon National Park and it is right across the street from the IMAX, the Visitor Center and Pink Jeep Tours.  There is a steak house, a pizza joint, grocery store and gas station all within walking distance of our campground.  



Frequent flyovers by tourist helicopters

Nice spacing between sites

All set up for the next four nights!

Check-in was effortless and setup was quick.  I spent a little time cleaning up after leaving Monument Valley as everything was coated with red dust.  


I screwed up and left the refrigerator on 'propane only' and it's been operating on propane only for several weeks.  Normally it will automatically switch to electric operation once we plug into shore power.  So we drained a propane tank which resulted in a 'NoFL' error message saying 'no flame'.  I switched it back over to electric operation and then switched the propane over to the spare tank.  No worries.  We will fill it in Las Vegas.

After a late lunch we walked across the street to the Visitor Center / IMAX Theater.  They have a nice souvenir shop along with the IMAX, a Pizza Hut and an ice cream shop.



We missed the IMAX start time by 10 minutes, so we cruised the gift shop and had an ice cream while we waited.  <Whole section deleted about the uninformed idiot that decided to engage me on the Oppenheimer movie playing later on the IMAX and how badly he felt for the Japanese people until I reminded him who started it.>  

Tomorrow we will drive into the south entrance and explore the Grand Canyon Visitor Center and the Village.  At 1700 hrs we have a Pink Jeep tour reserved.

Stats:  
This is campground #32 of 42 
# States Traveled Through So Far This Trip, in order: 22 (IA, MO, KS, OK, TX, LA, MS, AL,GA, TN, KY, OH, IN, MI, WI, IA, NE, CO, UT, UT,  CO, AZ, NM (4 corners!), UT, AZ)  
# States left to visit on this trip: 7 (NV, UT, WY, CO, KS, NE, IA)
Baseball Parks Visited So Far This Trip:  1 (Globe Life Field - Texas Rangers)
Lighthouses visited:  1 (Biloxi Lighthouse)
Lighthouses climbed:  0
Point to point travel miles:  6332 miles 
  - Avg point to point travel miles between campgrounds:  192 miles
Vicinity miles:  3147 miles 
  - Avg vicinity miles:  98 miles
Total miles driven:  9479 miles 
Total point to point driving time:  132 hrs 04 minutes
Total diesel fuel purchased: 871.604 gals 
Total diesel fuel cost:  $3206.23 
Average diesel fuel cost/gal:  $3.709
Max diesel fuel cost:  $4.849 (Monument Valley UT) 
Min diesel fuel cost:  $3.139 (San Antonio TX) 
Avg MPG:  11.46 miles/gal
Cost/mi of operation:  $0.34
# Nights at end of this stay:  145 (Includes Griff's start)
Total lodging cost:  $5936.73  (includes Griff's start)
Average cost/night:  $40.94

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