What time is it?

I can't be trusted with time right now. You'd think after 3 days in the same time zone that wouldn't be the case, but I woke up this morning at 4 AM (their time) like it was 7AM our time and I needed to go to work and R seems to be doing the same. It worked for us today because we got to the Skywalk about 2 hours earlier than I'd originally planned. Of course, who knew the Skywalk could take an entire day? If you plan a visit there...give it time. We stayed until 3PM after getting there at about 11AM and we still didn't see everything.

The ride from Williams, AZ to the Skywalk took about 3 hours and the second to the last part of the trip was a 9 mile ride on dirt roads through the mountains. It was a real special treat and I'm glad we had a rental car! The rocks and dust being thrown by the big tour buses and cars that wanted to go faster than the speed limit was crazy. We kept hearing this clinking sound on the undercarriage...scary!

I bought our actual Skywalk tickets online but we also had to get tickets for admission to the reservation. The SW is not part of the National Parks System, so those passes - if you have them - don't apply. Once you are as far as you can go, they shuttle you to the actual location on buses. That shuttle ride is free by the way and if you don't want to drive your car on the gravel road - although, its really not that bad, kind of an adventure in itself - you can take a shuttle further away in the town of Meadowview for that part, but you'll still have to take the second shuttle.

There are 2 stops on the east side of the terminal - for lack of a better word, I should really say "tourist trap" because there are all kinds of things to buy in there - the first stop is Eagle Point and the Skywalk, the second is Guapo point. If you look closely at the image of Eagle Point, you can see the wings spread in either direction and the body of the eagle in the center.

Its amazing. This picture was taken while we were still on the bus trying to get to it, but it has almost the whole eagle in it.

We spent a lot of time at that first stop taking pictures at Eagle Point and then going through the line to get to the SW. They give you a complimentary locker to put ALL of your personal belongings in, you see everyone walking around with an orange key fob on their wrists. You also have to put on little blue booties to protect the glass, but its still getting scratched up from what our tour guide showed us. They take pictures for you while you're on the SW and then of course you can buy them later, which I obviously did...once in a lifetime, remember?

There is a third bus stop, but you have to go back to the terminal for it and take a different bus. It is on the west side of the terminal and is the reservation itself. There are food stops at all three, but the reservation is the only location with the sit down, air conditioned restaurant. Everything else is walk up to the window, find a picnic table with an umbrella (good luck!) and have at it.

It took a really long time to get a bus to the second stop and we were already late on our schedule by then, so we skipped it and went back to the terminal. R was looking for a magnet for his sister, so we got that then headed back out the dirt road. We ended up within 3 miles of Hoover Dam on our way to Victorville/Hesperia, CA, so we stopped because R had never seen it. I've been there before, but he got some great pictures that I'll share eventually. Maybe while I'm in one place for 4 days....

OK, so we've been in the car for 4 or 5 or 6 days off and on now, so I have some travel rules to share with you...

     1) DRIVER RULES! - The driver always controls the music or in R's case, the talk radio (I sleep during that).
     2) WE'RE STOPPING, YOU'RE PEEING! Multi use stops are preferred - gas, food, restroom - that's the way to go.
     3) CAREFUL! - Never drink without a straw while travelling a winding road - this can result in lemonade in your shelf!
     4) SAVE THOSE VACATION CARDS! - Vacation cards are imaginery cards to be used in place of words that you have forgotten because your brain is in vacation mode. When you forget - present your vacation card for assistance or just to pass altogether on the comment you were attempting to make. NOTE: Negotiation proceedings are occuring to determine the true allotment of vacation cards per day. I mean really, just five? We've both already blown through those and we're not even half way through the trip!