Today was the day, we headed to the Grand Canyon Via the Grand Canyon railway. Owen and Zach went to find some breakfast. Owen really wanted Taco Bell, but they were closed so they brought McDonalds back instead. We watched a bit of TV before heading to the Wild West show. It was the perfect amount of cheesy. Zach and I laughed pretty hard. Then we boarded the train.

AmberRose was our train car person. She was wonderful. She did a great job telling us about the history of the railroad and the area. She warned us about the squirrles in the area. She said they send a cute fat one in for you to take a picture of and then you set your food down and BAM! your food is taken by the stealth team. The boys thought that was pretty hilarious. The boys loved that you could move between the cars.

After we got to the Canyon, we decided we needed to find some lunch. Everyone was a bit hangry. We had some gas station style sandwhiches in some shade. Owen and Zach went to the bathroom and that is when the squirels thought we were an easy target. William and I were sitting there minding our own business and a squirrel tried to take Zach's wrap, so we moved everything closer and still the squirrel presisted. It look a lot of conviencing for the squirll to move on and know he wasn't getting his next meal from us.

After we were fueled we walked around the rim. We went into one of the shops that over looks in the edge and we got to see a California Condor on a rock just below the ledge. It was pretty cool. We walked down the angels trail a little ways (just pased the first tunnel) and decided that was enough for us and turned around. They take Mules on this trail, so we had some fun conversations about mules.

After we got to the rim again, we decided to check out all the little shops and stores. We found a few postcards to mail and some stickers. We went to the El Torva hotel, filled up our water bottles and wrote out our postcards. They had a mail drop there (and thankfully I had already purchased postcard stamps). We made the short stroll back to the train.

The train ride back was enjoyable and relaxing. We played Rail Road ink (afterall we had brought it to play on the train). About an hour into the train ride, the bandits from this morning “hijacked” the train. They came through the train trying to take things. Right before they came to our car, AmberRose had a quick announcment (that was pretty funny) about not giving them anything and if you did, you wouldn't get it back.

We went back to the hotel room and regrouped before heading to Route 66 to find some food. We ended up at El Corral, a mexican restaurant. The margarita was tasty, everything else was meh. We still needed to make Arizona offical for the boys so walked down the street and found “oh Sweeties” ice cream. This was pretty tasty ice cream. We finished the loop on Route 66 and headed back to the hotel to call it a night.

After the boys went to bed Zach and I found places to stay in Moab and in Grand Lake.