Family

Family

Friday, June 8, 2012

Visit to the Grand Canyon

We have heard about the pristine beauty of Havasu Falls for many years and seeing the turquoise waters first hand has long been on our bucket list. I had never been to the Grand Canyon either so a road trip with the toy hauler combining a visit to the Grand Canyon and backpacking to Havasu Falls was a no brainer.

We headed out Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend with no clear destination or reservations. We ended up driving to Las Vegas on Saturday and camping right on the strip at Circus Circus. There is a KOA at Circus Circus if you ever find yourself in Vegas with an RV or trailer – we highly recommend staying there! A night in Vegas was definitely not planned so as soon as we pulled in I set out to make my road trip/camping clothes Vegas ready. Not an easy task, but we made it work! Luke has driven through Vegas many times, but had never stopped so we spent the night walking the strip, people watching, and seeing the sights.

The next morning we loaded up and it was back on the open road headed for Arizona. Most campgrounds around the Grand Canyon were full because of the holiday weekend so our plan was to camp on BLM land for the night (which there was no shortage of). We stopped to fuel up and get some groceries in a town about 60 miles outside of the Grand Canyon called Williams. It was such a cute mountain town that we decided to walk around and check it out. When we discovered the rodeo was in town, it was a pretty easy decision to stay in Williams for the night.


The next morning we drove to the Grand Canyon. I felt like a school girl, I was so giddy with excitement to finally see this amazing wonder. We stopped right outside the entrance to see the IMAX Grand Canyon movie. Luke said the movie hadn’t changed since he saw it 20 years ago J. The rest of the day was spent riding on the tour bus inside the park checking out all the different vistas and viewpoints of the Grand Canyon.

We were able to get a campsite for Monday night inside the park which we gladly took. Walking distance to the rim and elk sightings right in the campground made it a very memorable and enjoyable spot to stay.

We had camping reservations Wednesday and Thursday nights down in Havasupai Village so Tuesday morning we got our backpacking stuff all figured out and our packs packed for the big trip. It sure was nice having the toy hauler to spread our stuff out and have all that extra space.

Because we were towing a trailer, we needed to find a place to leave it while we were down in the canyon for two nights. We found a slightly run down and completely empty campground 5 miles from the turnoff for the road to the Havasupai trailhead – perfect! We unhooked the trailer and had a relaxing afternoon and delicious BBQ pork dinner in preparation for the next day’s hike. This campground gave me the creeps. I didn’t want to walk too far from our site in fear of stepping on a rattlesnake! Not that I saw any, it just looked like the perfect place for rattlesnakes to live. Have you seen the movie Tremors? Well that movie could very well have been filmed here. Fine spot to leave the trailer, but I was ready to get the heck out of there when we were done with the hike and returned on Friday.

The next morning we were up before the sun and headed to the highly anticipated Havasu Falls.




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