Grand Canyon and Bearizona

The Arizona portion of our summer vacation was a last minute addition.  Thanks to school being three days longer due to snow days, the last day was a Monday instead of the prior Wednesday we moved our vacation back one full week.  Then I realized I'd have to send William to summer camp for four days, then unenroll him to not pay the weekly fee when we were on vacation and then enroll him again.  Instead of all of that, we just went on a longer vacation!  All we had to do was turn our Southwest roundtrip into a three-legged flight and book our passage on the Grand Canyon Railway!  I got the idea from Arizona and California friends who had blogged or posted on Facebook about taking their families.  I'm really pleased we did it.  John was in charge of the rental car and surprised us by booking Silvercar.  We were right at home, because they only rent a single type of car: the same one we have!   John just liked zipping through Sedona and the mountains in a fast car!

 

First stop once we got to Williams, AZ ("Gateway to the Grand Canyon") was Bearizona - a drive through wildlife park!  They had sheep, deer, bison, and bears.  I'm sure I'm forgetting other things. . . We missed the last raptor show of the day, but we did get to do the drive thru, walk thru, and the petting zoo portions.  Feeding the baby goats was a highlight of the vacation! .

Williams, AZ is a tiny town (about 3,000) but they did have a Pizza Hut in front of our hotel, so William was thrilled!  He has been begging to try Pizza Hut; apparently he has seen TV commercials for its "best tasting" pizza.  He was not disappointed!  Mom and Dad weren't impressed with the salad bar that only had 4 ingredients and 6 dressings.  Day two was our roundtrip to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon on the "just corny enough" (my assessment) Grand Canyon Railway.  

We spent about 3 hours hiking the rim and doing a little bit of one trail into the canyon before boarding the train and heading back.  It was a great first glimpse at the canyon and a great way to tackle it with an out of shape mom nervous about her six-year-old falling in!   Maybe when he's an Eagle Scout he'll do a real hike in!