October 8: Grand Canyon South Rim Ground Tour Continued, Route 66, Grand Canyon Caverns

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Day 9: After the sunset the night before, Cheryl and I got up to see the sunrise. It was not all that good, but we saw over a dozen deer, including a doe and her fawn not more than 10 yards from us. We went back and got Dawn and Mary and checked out and drove to the east end of the park. Of course we stopped at all the lookouts on the way. That did it for the Grand Canyon ground tour. We stopped at the entrance to take a picture on our way out, then headed back west.

We got off of I-40 to follow old route 66 instead. I blew the photo opportunity, though. I had planned to bend over and have Cheryl or Dawn prentend to kick me, so that I could say I got my kicks on Route 66, but when the moment came, I forgot. We were headed towards a place on the map called Grand Canyon caverns. Cheryl's AAA book said they were until 5 and it was getting late so we were afraid we would miss the last tour. One of may favorite moments of the trip came when Cheryl told me that I should pick things up a bit. I was doing about 83 MPH at the time. I guess it is hard to judge your speed on those desolate 2 lane highways through the desert.

It turned out that the caverns were open until 5:30, so we got there in plenty of time. They were interesting, but not the best caverns that I have seen. They are dry; no moisture at all. So no new stalactites or stalagmites can form, and there is not much color.

We followed old route 66 the rest of the way into Kingman again and spent the night there. We saw a lot of trains along the way. That is one thing you always see a lot of when driving across the desert southwest.