Day 19

We're going to rewind a bit and go back to last night. After we posted, at around 8 at night, we decided to hit the town and see what happens late at night in Williams, AZ. Rhonda got dressed, and we walked down to the Sultana, a small local bar on the 'strip'. Rhonda and Brett enjoyed a beer, but not much was going on. We just sort of observed the locals playing pool and hanging out. There was a two woman welcoming comittee that were, let's just say that they were not really that welcoming with all of the swearing and shouting (not to mention that one of them was wearing her McDonalds work uniform).

We decided to try another bar, the Canyon Club. We saddled up to the bar and were about to order a beer when a very friendly but inebriated man spotted us and joined us. We did some quick introductions, and he bought us a round. His name was John, and he was from LA. He asked us our names and where we were from (and he did again many, many, many more times throughout the night). John asked us about our relationship, Brett quickly responded that I was his mail order bride from Nova Scotia, which confused John and he left us alone for a while. We got to know Jackie the bartender, Melvin the school coach, and another local who was actually from Manitoba originally. Jackie gave us some advice about the Grand Canyon, which was really cool. The bar also had a group there from Belgium that was having a great time playing shuffleboard and when the sherriffs came in they had their picture taken with them. At this point we were babysitting John so that he didn't get arrested and trying to keep him under wraps. It was a great night, lots of fun and very educational. What a place, including the very interesting bathrooms. We were the interesting strangers in a small town bar.

In, the morning, Brett had a rather interesting experience checking out. There was pretty disgruntled lady in there complaining about getting in at 3 AM and having to wake up her hotel neighbor, blah, blah, blah, and she thought she was entitled to a discount. The hotel clerk thought different, so the lady decided it would be appropriate to throw the call bell at the wall and announce how rude and inconsiderate everyone was. Brett got out as soon as possible, he was kind of scared I think. As we pulled out, the clerk and her family were on the street, awaiting the arrival of the local sherrif. The uhaul truck that the lady was driving was still there so we think she got into some sort of trouble. Of course the uhaul truck might explain some of her attitude.

We were back on the road, headed to the Grand Canyon's south rim, which was about an hour north. We drove, had lunch at the village near the rim, and then boarded a shuttle bus to see the lookout points into the canyon. We stopped at 3 of the 7 lookouts, and were stunned by the sight of the canyon itself. Brett managed to get really close to the edge of the canyon for a great look. It's an amazing sight, to see all that rock carved away by the Colorado River.

We headed back to the village, and hopped into the truck. Destination: Page, AZ. This is where the rafting companies on the river launch from, and it happens to be the home of Lake Powell Resort. We arrived there at about 6 PM, after driving through the Indian reservation between the south rim village and Page. You wouldn't think people could live out of truck campers (without the truck attached), but they do out here. It's like seeing a third world nation out here.

We arrived at Lake Powell Resort, and got back into camping mode. We set up the tent, grabbed a pizza from the local pizza joint down the road, and enjoyed the spectacular view of the lake against the red cliffs of the canyon walls. Now we sit under a beautiful moon, with out computer and out LED lights, talk about roughing it.

About 300 km's put on the truck today, and everybody's still in the truck.