We left Temecula at 5:10am yesterday. We decided to “sleep
in” until 4:30am and then head out. Justin and I gathered our last minute items
and hit the road. I made an executive decision to take I15 to I40 instead of
random “desert roads” that the GPS was trying to take us on. In the end, I
think it added 40 miles and 40 minutes of driving to our day.
We stopped in Barstow to refuel and take a little break from
driving before we continued on to Needles and then stopped in Kingman, AZ for
lunch at Chipotle. I looked in advance online and determined that it would be
easier to park the trailer at Chipotle than it would to be parking at In N Out.
Lauren and I are both gluten free, so fast food on the road can be a challenge
at times.
We stopped in Kingman and the main road through town was
uncomfortably narrow under construction so there were no lines painted on the
ground. We then headed to the Safeway gas station on the other side of the
interstate to fuel up. We topped off our fuel in Barstow (+1/4 tank) and then
were just a little over a quarter of a tank left when we fueled in Kingman.
From there, we got back on I40 for the last 2h45m of the
trip. About 20 minutes in to our drive, there was a warning notice lit up over
the highway warning us that in Segman, there was a semi on fire and the highway
was closed. We pushed on and hoped that in an hour, the interstate would be
open again.
We got to the town of Segman and as we were heading down the
hill in to the little “one gas station and campground” of a town, we could see
the absolutely stopped traffic. We were stopped about 100 yards from the exit
on the interstate. Thankfully, two semis decided to pull off the interstate and
wait it out, which gave us enough room to go down the side and get off too. At
first Justin suggested we just stay in the line and wait it out, but it was 95
degrees outside and idling with the AC on was not going to be a long term
solution. I made an executive decision to get off, park and wait. There were a
lot of semis all pulling in, like semis do, tightly packed in in nice rows with
plenty of pace to pull out in a dirt lot next to the gas station. We ended up
getting one of the last pull through spaces in the lot.
Lauren and I got out of the truck and headed to the trailer
to get some games, go potty and get a cold drink since it was hot out. And man,
was it hot out. I was thankful that we were in the trailer and hot and not on
the interstate strapped to our seats. While we were hanging out in the trailer,
Justin ran in to the gas station to use the restroom and the lady working in
there was giving out directions on how to bypass the truck fire. The directions
sounded super sketchy, so we were texting my dad (because cell service was
non-existent) to see if he could see the route on google earth and confirm that
it was passable in an RV. It was route 66 and we saw parts of it that were so
rough and narrow, we would have been in a real bind if we had been driving on
it. We debated on what to do for about 30 minutes and then I went back inside
and asked the lady if it was a road that would passable for RVs and Semis and
she said yes, so off we went!! The bypass worked wonderfully, and there were
very few cars and the road when we merged back on to I40, 17 miles later.
We pulled in to the Grand Canyon around 4:30 and set up camp
and as luck would have it…our fresh water tank kept leaking all over the
ground. Justin discovered that the line that fills that tank got brittle and
cracked in two places. He was able to fill it by running a hose down the line
and bypassing the cracked area. While he was doing that, I was preparing hot
dogs for dinner. Well, that couldn’t go smoothly either, could it? I accidentally
snapped the clip off the refrigerator that holds the door closed while we are
traveling. Ugh
We still had lots of daylight left so we made our way to the
Visitor Center for the sunset via bikes. The roads are not well marked and it
was a challenge to find our way. We ended up in a lot of parking lots and stuff
like that. We finally arrived, with headaches and nausea because the altitude
was not being nice to us…and parked our bikes and got our first look at the
South Rim. We then walked to the Point where a large crowed had gathered, with
their selfie sticks and iPads to photograph the sunset.
We decided to try and
get the bikes on the shuttle so see how it would work for our ride to Hermit’s
Rest in the morning. The driver allowed us to take the Trail-A-Bike on the
shuttle because it was not crowded but said most drivers would not allow it. We
rode the shuttle to the General Store/Yavapai Lodge and got off. Which was only
one stop away.
I wanted some ice cream and to do some shopping, so we
headed over to the store which was really a huge supermarket with lots of
options and decent prices, especially for a National Park. I got my artwork, an
ornament and a strawberry popsicle. Lauren also had a strawberry popsicle and
Justin had a Ice cream bar. We sat out on the patio and ate our treats and then
rode our bikes a short distance back to our campsite for the night. Lauren and
Justin were asleep by 9am which is pretty much a family record.
Day One Details:
Miles Driven: 495 Miles
Campground: Trailer Village RV Park inside Grand Canyon National Park {Full Hookups & Pull through}
Nightly Rate: $36
Highlight: Seeing the Grand Canyon from the South Rim, but popcicles were a close second!
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