We did it…
We hiked, dragged ourselves, complained, nearly passed out and barely made it out of THE CANYON! These words are from a magnet that I bought as proof and for memory of our hiking event. Yes, we did it and we survived.
As you can assume, we are back from our Arizona trip. It took me quite a bit of time to go through our tons of photos, choose the good ones and upload them. Sorry, if you have been waiting for so long. Here are the pictures:
The Grand Canyon is a about seven hours drive from us.
Most of the photos were taken from out of the car.
Still in New Mexico…on the road…
Then we thought we saw Uluru (Australia’s famous rock) in New Mexico’s desert…
Along the way we saw many mile-long trains:
Then, welcome to Arizona:
Some dinosaurs almost attacked us as well
An impression of how the roads looked like…(straight baby, straight)
Not long until we get to Williams and quite close to Los Angeles
This is our cute Bed&Breakfast Canyon Country Inn in Williams. We each paid $66 for two nights on route 66, yeah!
the train station is right next to our bed (ok, almost) and the first night we woke up and sat straight in bed at 3.30 when a train made loud noises with their train whistle to let everyone know they now run through the town. Aaaarrghhhh! Two more times we woke up through this. Have you seen the movie Polar Express? It was like that…hooooonk! OMG, I thought it runs right through our room. You should have seen Nathan’s face…haha, funny. But…you know, it somehow was nostalgic. =)
The guest house from the outside
Our Canyon hike tour the next day (Saturday)
our first view into the canyon
we hiked a trail called bright angel trail
on this picture you can see how far we hiked, until the trees at the very bottom, need a magnifying glass? 
Point your finger in the center of the photo, then go a little bit south and then west…that was our goal (puhh)
You could ride a mule on the way into the canyon and back.
there was mule poop and pee everywhere on the paths…
and more…
A view from bright angel spot up to the top: 
The historic Grand Canyon train (prizes start from $60 p.p.): 
Downtown Williams.
Me on Route 66.
and Nathan in the route 66 cafe
On the way back home to NM.
close-up of one of these many trains (shot from inside the car)
We hiked 10 miles/15km in 5 hours (without breaks in total of one hour) in an elevation change of 3300 feet/1000m! The estimated time to hike our distance is six to nine hours. We did it in five hours, but don’t ask for the muscle pain that came after!! Horrible. Today, four days later, is the first day that I can walk. I had the worst muscle ache ever and Nathan suffered the same. We didn’t hike the canyon, we ran through, because we wanted to make it back up to the top to see the sunset. I really thought that I will never make it. I wanted to give up, close before the end, but Nathan pushed me. I thought we have seen so many sunsets all over the world that I don’t really care about this one, if I can just slow down or don’t move anymore. Nathan finally convinced me to try it at least. At 6pm we reached the top. First we went straight to the toilet and to the shop to buy water. Then we sat down in front of an open fire of an old fashion fire place. To sit down felt so good, that we didn’t want to get up anymore. Nathan found out that the best spot to see the sunset is eight miles away and the sunset starts at 6.25pm. It was 6.05pm and wouldn’t have made it to catch the bus. Anyway, we were so tired and sore (our feet hurt like hell) that we decided to rather miss the sunset than stress ourselves more. Take it easy…don’t move, just sit down forever at the nice warm fire, was in my mind. Well, in the end we took a quick look outside just in front of the building. The sun already set quite far and the spot was not the best to enjoy it. We barely could walk, and decided to just drive home…to lie down. *g*
Back in Williams, we went out for dinner at a very nice Italian restaurant, called ‘Red Raven’. The night before we ate at a local restaurant and I got to know the typical American food. Smile. Here is one impression of the american-supersize and deep-fried-mode:
actually my chicken was baked, but still very oily, same as the fries and even the vegetables (corn,carrots from a can). In the middle of eating the waitress came and asked us if we want dessert. They do that always, in the middle of you eating, while your plate still is full. If you say no, thanks, then, five minutes later, you have the bill on your table. It confused me a lot in the beginning, but Nathan said, they have to do it like this. The faster the tables are served and billed, the faster they can have new customers sit down. Yes, fast food always and everywhere. I thought that the locals eat better food than this, but Nathan meant that I have to get to know the ‘what-most-Americans-eat-experience’, because this was my first time eating fast food in the States. I never went to any Big M’s or similar nasty places. This restaurant In Williams would not call their food fast food, they are an old traditional restaurant on route 66 and I got the impression that they really think their food is great.
It was very very oily and to Nathan’s astonishment, they didn’t even serve alcohol. What a pity. Beer generally fits good to fatty food.
To my astonishment the people who sat next to our table, they came way after us, ordered their food, ate, ordered more food, ate, and left while Nathan and I still were eating! Wow, I could not believe how fast they ate (scoff). The portions were huge!
Ok, enough from fatty overweight because of always super-size America. We highly recommended to watch the movie “Supersize Me” and you get an impression what super-size means. We watched the movie a day before we went on the trip…a good movie to watch while you are in the States.
Now, I have a problem with my photo plugin, damn. 
Unfortunately, I cannot show you more photos at the moment, I’m sorry.
For now, I only can say, please visit my photo gallery, if you want to see them all. Yes, there are many more, but I’ve shown you the best, I think.
Puh, this was a long post. I hope you enjoyed to read the photo story.
It was a very nice trip, we had the best weather, and our car brought us, without trouble, the whole 1000 miles.
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