22nd October Grand Canyon
We travelled by coach on the legendary Route 66 and boarded
the train at Williams for our two and a half hour journey to the Grand Canyon
after being treated to a Wild West shootout.
At least they had the decency to do it as a comedy. The train coaches were from the 1950s
although disappointingly the engine itself was modern. Despite this it still only travelled at a
maximum of 40 mile per hour.
During the journey we were treated to two bouts of
entertainment. The first was the most
appalling country singer; I have never heard Johnny Cash numbers so
butchered. He had a most amazing range
of unnecessary key changes and all delivered out of tune. It was a real example of giving him a dollar
to play in the next carriage. The second
was another Dix moment. Derek seems to
think he is invincible and the more Doug, our tour manager, told us the limits
to what we could expect to be able to do in the time that we had, the more Derek would ask if he could walk
further. In the end all you could hear
was Doug saying, “no Derek, no Derek, you won’t have time Derek, no Derek”. We think he finally got the message.
When we got to the Canyon the views were as spectacular as
they always appear in the photos. The
scale is so immense that it really impossible to take them in. The canyon is 277 miles long so you can only
see a part of it at any one time. After
lunch we walked the 1.65 mils to the observation point, which took us 45
minutes, we then realised that we were running out of time and had to do the
return journey in 30 minutes. Not bad at altitude and after a good lunch! You could say we felt like a couple of Dix!
The return journey had a much better entertainer, guitar,
harmonica, blues and railroad songs, even a reference to Lonnie Donegan. We
were also of course attacked by bandits who were beaten off by our noble
sheriff. As we approached our terminus
the canteen server sang her song again –“ las coll, las coll, the caneeen will
close in five minits.”
On the way back to Flagstaff we stopped on old route 66 for
photos then there was time for a quick dinner before boarding the South West
Chief for our last overnight journey to Los Angeles.
Derek bless him!
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