You know how most hotels who offer breakfast along with your stay, just have a rather small area for eating and not much variety? Well, this hotel that we have stayed in for the last two nights, the Best Western Grand Squire Inn, really goes over-the-top in serving their guests an awesome breakfast meal! There are two buffet lines, with a wide assortment of fruits, sliced and ready to eat, along with several fruit dips; also eggs, sausage, biscuits, gravy, several kinds of breads for toasting, pancakes, oatmeal, cold cereals, coffee, milk, fruit juices, and on and on! Wow, what a great way to start our day! And we are seated at a table in a large dining area that probably will seat more than 100 guests!
We drive back down to Flagstaff to drop Don off at the airport, since he has a flight scheduled this morning, and will go back home and to work in the morning, while Tom and I continue on our vacation. We have enjoyed Don's company so much and are so thankful that he took the time to fly out here to meet us for the difficult task of hiking into the Grand Canyon, even though he had already done this same hike two years ago with three of my sisters (Norma, Donna, & Ginny).
Our plans are to travel north from Flagstaff on U.S.Hwy 89 for 109 miles to Bitter Springs, then follow the scenic route on Alt.89 for 86 miles to Kanab, Utah. This will be a leisurely day after yesterday, which we think we will enjoy.
Well, after going only 66 miles, thru some pretty desolate landscape, we find we have to take a detour. It seems that U.S.Hwy.89 has a "cave-in" somewhere in the 43 miles between U.S.Hwy.160 and Bitter Springs, therefore we have to take the detour onto U.S.Hwy.160 eastbound for 50 miles before taking State Hwy.98 north for 66 miles to Page, Arizona.
As you can see by the flags blowing straight out at that abandoned "flea market" beside the highway, it was very windy today! While traveling on U.S.Hwy.160 (the detour), we passed thru Tuba City, population 8,611; Red Lake, population 100; Cow Springs, population 40. We then turned onto State Hwy. 98 (still the detour) and about halfway along on this 66 mile stretch is the small town of Kaibito, population 1,522. Now this "cave-in" happened last year (November 2012), so I can imagine how these small towns along the detour must really be benefiting with all this added traffic passing thru their small towns, and stopping to buy gas, food, etc.!
We had not planned on going to Page, Arizona, but here we are! This town was established in the 1950's, during the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam, which forms Lake Powell. We stopped at the Visitor Center after crossing over the bridge that spans the Colorado River at the Glen Canyon Dam.
This was a nice surprise at the end of the "detour". We are glad we got see Glen Canyon Dam and tour the Visitor Center there to read about and see how it was built and all the benefits to the area through providing electricity, irrigation, recreation, etc.
Now we are back on U.S.Hwy.89 for the last 64 miles to Kanab, Utah for the night. It is still extremely windy, lots of blowing sand, desolate and sparsely populated landscape, passed several Native American hitchhikers.
If you are ever in Kanab, Utah, I would not recommend staying at the Rodeway Inn. It is a little "dated and tired"! I guess I should not have expected much for $80 per night? Remember the extravagant breakfast we had this morning at the Best Western Grand Squire Inn? Not going to be like that here in Kanab, Utah! Our room at the Rodeway Inn was fairly clean, but the limited breakfast selection served in the tiny lobby (with only a tired sofa for seating), furnished trays that we could carry our breakfast on back up to our room to eat!
Tomorrow we are heading to Zion National Park, where my hiker friends, Sue "Spud" and Tom "Snake Hips" will be meeting us for the day! Really looking forward to that!
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