After completing my TESL/TEFL certificate program, I knew I was going to want to go on vacation. Maybe Seattle. I’d never been to Portland. Or a weekend at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo? Oooh, a train ride through the rockies maybe! Eddie had brought up the Grand Canyon a couple times because he had never been there. I’ve been to the Grand Canyon a couple times, but never really spent more than a day there. It’s always been a trip to the rim to take in the sights, and then heading off to the next part of the adventure. I knew I didn’t want our entire weekend to be driving, so we decided it might be cool to hike into the Grand Canyon for a day hike. I won’t lie; I was kind of inspired by some friends at the gym who had done the Rim-2-Rim-2-Rim. Theirs was a 4-night trip I think, IN the canyon, so we wouldn’t be doing anything that extreme, but I’d never been below the rim so we thought it might be a nice adventure to share together.

Friday – Route 66

We hit the road Friday morning and made a stop at It’s a Grind in Temecula. Apparently this was someplace Eddie used to go to have breakfast every morning when he was living in Temecula. I wasn’t super impressed (haha) but we had our breakfast sandwiches, coffee, and hit the road!

Our first stop on our Route 66 trip was Roy’s Motel and Cafe in Amboy, CA. After 3 hours in the car, it was nice to get out and stretch the legs! Roy’s used to be a motel, cafe and gas station back in Route 66’s hay-day. Since the opening of Interstate 40, the motel and cafe are defunct, though the gas station is still in operation. Literally, the only business in Amboy is this gas station, the post office across the street (if that counts as a business), and the chloride factory down the street.

We hopped back into the car for another few hours before driving into Oatman. I’d visited Oatman once before on a family trip and thought it was cool enough to return with Eddie. Oatman was an old gold-mining town in northwestern Arizona, named after Olive Oatman, a girl from Illinois who was kidnapped during her family’s westward journey in 1851, forced into slavery and not released until 5 years later, with a face tattoo which was common with the Mohave indians she had been with. I didn’t know any of that until after that first trip. You can read more about that here.

The town is also popular for its feral burros. When the miners abandoned the town, they released their burros instead of taking the animals with them, and the burros that roam freely about town are the descendants of those mining burros. They’re actually really cute!

We walked up and down the small town/village’s main street before having lunch at Olive Oatman Restaurant and Saloon, and then headed to Seligman for dessert.

Now this was a find on Pinterest; Delgadillos Snow Cap Drive-In. Another historical landmark on Route 66. I had wanted to go for a milkshake, and totally had not realized the sense of humor and “pranks” the employees play on patrons. For example, their menu includes “Sundaes, (male and female).” When I asked what the difference between male and female sundaes were, the man behind the counter (I think his name was Jimmy) responded; “nuts.” Haha, I see what you did there. Or when I asked for a banana butterscotch shake and he showed me a bunch of extra-ripe (I mean BLACK) bananas and said that’s what he’d be making them from. Or when he picked up a bundle of hay and asked if we wanted straws. The place itself is eccentric and flamboyant but the staff definitely went with the shop’s character! Definitely a worthwhile stop on your trip east on I-40/Route 66. Oh, the shakes were good too.

We finally made it into Williams, Arizona, which is about an hour south of the Grand Canyon. Being Memorial Day weekend, a lot of hotels were booked up, but I was able to get us a room at the Grand Canyon Hotel. The Grand Canyon Hotel originally opened in 1891 and I loved its character. The floors creaked and the walls made noise but it wasn’t so distracting that I couldn’t pass out both nights we were there. Each of the 29 rooms is uniquely decorated, and we were able to peek into a couple of them because they leave the doors open until occupants check in and close it themselves. We stayed in the Romantic Room, which included a private bathroom with a claw-foot tub! [insert heart eyes emoji here]. Eddie said he felt like he was in a western.

We took a little power nap before grabbing some groceries for our hike and had a pasta dinner across the street (because carb-loading) before turning in to rest up for the next day’s hike.

Saturday – Bright Angel to Indian Gardens and Back

We had originally planned to start our hike early to avoid crowds, beat the heat, and catch the sunrise on Eddie’s first trip to the Grand Canyon. Our bodies had other plans as we slept through both alarms. We were still up early enough that it was brisk, and started our hike at around 8AM. We ended up stuck behind a mule train taking a group of tourists down the canyon for about an hour, but things eventually cleared up and we were mostly by ourselves for our trek.

We stopped for a short break at mile 3 and had a snack in some shade before finishing the last mile and a half down to Indian Gardens campsite. We found the perfect shady spot in the day use area with a picnic table right beside the creek. It really was perfect; the brush around us created enough privacy that we weren’t super distracted by other people using the day use area, we were completely in the shade thanks to the trees around us, the creek was literally 5 feet from the picnic table so there was the nice sound of bubbling water, and there was a nice cool breeze blowing through. Seriously. Perfect. The canyon walls surrounding us kind of reminded me of my trip to Zion. We took our boots off and enjoyed the onigiri and fig newtons I had packed, and helped each other with the electrolyte pouches Eddie brought along.

When we felt ready, we put our boots back on, packed up and headed back up the canyon. We were breathing hard almost immediately! We took a break at the same 3-mile stop, as well as just shy of the 1.5-mile stop, and some smaller, shorter breaks after that. The return trip didn’t take as long as I expected, which I was impressed with. Nevertheless, it was a tough hike! (Honestly, I compare all my hikes I do locally with the 10-13 mile hikes we did in Israel for two weeks in 100+ degree dry heat with little-to-no shade, and when I do that, I always think it could be worse. Haha…)

The crowds were definitely out in full force the last mile of the hike, but we made it to the top of the rim without getting on each other’s nerves, which must say something for the relationship, right? We took our obligatory after-photo and headed back to the car to change into some dryer clothes. I would have liked to see a couple other viewpoints with Eddie to take in the sights but he was getting hangry and the park was packed. So we decided to head back into town to have a proper lunch. (On the way out, the line to enter the park literally had to have been at least a half-mile long!)

After lunch, we showered and I got to try my first bath bomb in that claw-foot tub. The overflow drain was lower that I wished it was, so I still didn’t get to put my shoulders and knees below the waterline, but the warm water and fragrant smell was enough to relax and almost fall asleep in the tub. I didn’t though, but we did power nap again before getting dressed for date night. We had steaks and whiskey for dinner.

Sunday morning, we slept in and basically didn’t check out until we had to at 10am. We walked down the main strip after having breakfast, and started our 7-hour trip back to San Marcos. We had noticed Steak N Shake opened a location in Yucca Valley, so we did take a detour on the way back just to stop there for a steak-burger and milkshake. We also drove into a crazy-looking storm in Palm Springs that I wish I had taken a picture of. One half of Palm Springs was sunny with clear skies, but there were dark grey clouds looming and pushing their way through the mountains, which made for a pretty gnarly contrast.

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This was probably the most memorable trip to the Grand Canyon I’ve taken. Eddie and my first vacation together, we made it 14+ hours in a car and a strenuous 5-hour hike together without wanting to kill the other, which I think is a good sign for our relationship haha… It was especially nice to share the experience with him because he had always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon, but had the impression that vacations cost a lot of money and that he’d never really be able to get around to doing it. The guy’s lucky he ended up with a girl who loves travel and knows a hack or two to make vacations affordable. 😉

Having traveled solo for so long, I can’t wait to go on more adventures with him now.