Grand Canyon Rail & Hotel Package, Part 1.

GRAND CANYON RAILWAY & HOTEL Kevin’s work is off on Good Friday so we had planned accordingly. 🙂 We left home (HOWE, our Home On WhEels) in Needles, CA around 8:00 and drove to Kingman to pick up our mail and a stamp. Before we were Full-Time, I had had a stamp made with my name and return address. It makes it nice when sending out notes and cards. I had one made up with the new mailing address.

Then on to Williams, AZ. We hadn’t been east of Kingman so the territory was new for us to see. The area has lots of pinion-juniper (cedar) trees. As you climb elevation it gets into Ponderosa Pines. Very pretty. There isn’t a lot of stops along the way on I-40. At Williams, we walked around the old downtown main street. There is a lot of history and it is along Route 66. A sign said, “ In 1926, the Old Trails Highway was officially designated US Highway 66,  and it became the “Main Street of America.” In 1984, Williams was the last route 66 town in America to be bypassed by the interstate highway system.” When we were ready for lunch, we went to Pine Country Restaurant. Kevin rated his patty melt as a once a week and a rated my hot roast beef open faced sandwich with mashed potatoes as every day. They say they are famous for their homemade pies. We saw some and they are piled high! But we were too full to try one. We would definitely recommend this restaurant.

Next we went to the Visitor’s Center for some history.  Inside is hanging the Last Stop Light on Route 66. We laughed that we also saw the last stop light before I-90 in Wallace, ID last July.

Next we walked along a memorial park that is in between the both directions of the street. There we saw  “Desert Storm Monument. Constructed January 1991. To show community support for William’s servicemen and women involved in the Gulf War. Candles representing each individual burned inside continuously until their return.” WOW! What a beautiful thought and way of supporting those off to war. It is made of concrete bricks with glass windows to see the candles burn. Touching! Williams in named for William Sherley Williams 1787-1849. He was “a colorful mountaineer, guide and trapper who is generally credited with being the first American to explore Northern Arizona – 1830 or earlier. Williams lived at different times among the Osage and Ute Indians, and earlier had been a Baptist circuit rider in Missouri. He was killed by Indians in 1849.” After that, we went to the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel and checked in. Our room is very nice and….has a bathtub!!! I was so thrilled. I love love love taking a hot, bubble bath and that is all I miss about a stick and brick house. We walked to the train depot and got our tickets for the train. When Kevin asked the person about a script for the train, she went and checked with someone. A lady came out and said yes, she had received Kevin’s email about me being deaf and she would have a script put in our hotel room. So very nice. Kevin wanted to spoil me with The Grand Canyon Package. We got the luxury package of everything and it was so wonderful. It included: hotel at Williams, luxury train car ride to Grand Canyon, hotel at Grand Canyon, luxury train car ride back to Williams, all the meals included, plus Sunset guided bus tour of Grand Canyon. After we got the train tickets, we ate supper at the restaurant there. We had taken our swimming suits just in case but there were a lot of kids in the pool and it was crowded so we didn’t do it. We went back to our room and I had a wonderful 1.5 hour long bubble bath! Kevin set a chair next to the tub put my iPad on it so I could see it from the bathtub. I watched a movie. Doesn’t get better than that! HAHA Funny though, we slept horribly! The bed was too soft and we kept waking each other up as we rolled around. 

Next blog, train ride to Grand Canyon!