Musical Instrument Museum

Our final Hurrah before leaving Arizona was a visit to the Musical Intrument Museum.  Recommended by our good friends Rick and Kate Cooper, it was highly anticipated by Hubby.

I thought it would be kind of boring, but it was amazing! When you entered the museum they gave you a headset.  As you walked through the different displays, they had video footage highlighting the country or instruments in the display.   The video footage really brought what you were seeing to life.

It was a vast museum with all different rooms.  Starting out with different countries, and working its way to different genres and finally highlighting musicians.

A Giant Double-bass.   We wondered how someone could play it.....and actually saw footage later of someone doing just that!

Hubby would like this....no, please don't get one for him!

Now this.....if it would only fit in his Christmas stocking!

There was only one instrument in the whole place that you were allowed to play....a beautiful Steinway piano!  Hubby really enjoyed playing it.   I thought I was taking video of him, but turns out I wasn't!  Sorry!

One of the drums played in the opening ceremonies of the Tokyo Olympics.

I think we might have some friends with this many guitars!

Nope!  No bagpipes in our house either!

We spent over 3 1/2 hours here, and had to rush through the last two rooms before the place closed.  Amazing collection of music!!!

Thus ended our Arizona Adventure.  The next day we boarded the plane and headed back to NH.  The only black mark on a fantastic adventure was that Flight Line forgot to send someone to pick us up!  Luckily, after some "Karen-like" behavior, they sent a car for us.

We totally enjoyed every minute of our trip.   It was so unreal to be in the western part of the same country we live in and feel as if we were on another planet!  It was great to come home to NH and see so much green!  (and orange and red and yellow foliage!)

 

Grand Canyon West Skywalk

 

From Williams, we drove almost 2 hours west to Kingman, AZ where we stayed for two nights so we could visit The Skywalk at Eagle Point.

Kingman was a much bigger city than I imagined.  We came in at night and as we approached we could see a plethora of city lights.  We stayed at a Best Western that, strangely, had their hot tub in a separate, glass building in the parking lot.  Hmmmm....we chose not to partake!

The drive from Kingman to The Skywalk is a long, barren road with absolutely nothing as far as the eye can see.....no houses, stores or bathrooms.  We did, however, drive through Joshua Tree National Forest.   Believe me, it's not a "forest" as we think of it in New England!

When you get to the landing point for the Walkway, you are on a Native American Reservation.  No private vehicles are allowed beyond that point, so they have shuttles to bring you out to Eagle Point.

It's called Eagle Point because of the "eagle" shape of the rock formation as you look out over the canyon.

Our main point for going was to walk on the glass walkway.

We had been told we would not be able to bring any cameras or phones on the walkway.  We had to take everything out of our pockets and put them in a locker.  Then we had to put on booties so our shoes wouldn't scratch the glass.  

It was an extremely windy day, so it was initially pretty exhilarating to go out on the walkway. It wasn't nearly as scary as one would think, as attested to by the fact that Hubby, who is not fond of heights, had no problem being out there.  

After the first minute or so, I found myself feeling under-whelmed.  You were only a few feet over the canyon, the floor of the walkway wasn't all glass (there were steel beams on either side, and only about 3 feet of glass were under your feet) and the view of the canyon was not as beautiful as some of the views we'd seen the day before.  But it was a very cool experience and one I'm glad we had.

There had been adverised that there was a Native American Village to tour.  The village turned out to be a display of different styles of Native American homes.

They did have a Native American man chanting with his drum and a few women "dancing".

From Eagle Point, a shuttle took you over to Guano Point.  At first I was wondering why they would call it Guano Point, knowing that guano is bat excrement.   It turns out that there was a cave there full of bats and they had set up a way to excavate the guano from the cave and use it for fertilizer.

It was still incredibly windy, and there were little dust tornadoes everywhere.  The view of the canyon was murky, but it made it that much more dramatic!

We climbed to the top of the first rock formation.  The people on the walkway below were tiny!

We chose not to climb to the top of the second rock formation....it looked too scary! Yes, those are people at the top of it!

We did decide to walk along the walkway to the end of the point to see the remains of the guano mine.

This was the first time on the trip that I was nervous about the edge.  Not for us, because we were smart enough to stay far away.  I was nervous for the other people who were standing on the edge, climbing over the low rocks that formed a boundary, or sitting on those rocks to take photos. Several times I had to turn my back  - I didn't want to be witness to someone going over the edge!

                             

At the end of the point was the stage for the mine.  From there, there used to be a cable line that workers would have to cross to get to the cave on the other side!  Not a job I would be volunteering for!

Yea...I made sure I was closer to the rock formations than I was to the edge!

(note the Grand Canyon T-shirt....we are such tourists!)

From Guano Point we took the shuttle back to the staging area, then drove back to Kingman for another night.  

In the morning I wanted to have a nice breakfast at a diner instead of the usual hotel breakfast. We found Mr.D'z Diner on Route 66.

It was everything one would want in a roadside diner.  Ketchy, with lots of memorabilia on the walls.  Great food! And a jukebox too!

Bathrooms

Up to that point, I hadn't realized we were on Route 66!  Now we can say "We got our Kicks on Route 66!"

After a very delicious diner breakfast, we started the 3 hour drive back to Phoenix for the grand finale.....the Musical Instrument Museum!

The Grand Canyon

 We arrived at the Grand Canyon aboard the train on a spectacularly beautiful day.  Actually, for all our time in Arizona it was perfect weather.  It was especially nice to have clear blue skies and temperatures around 75-80 degrees.

After a bus tour that I wasn't very fond of, we were able to wander around the village or walk along the rim.   There was a very nice shuttle system all over the park, so we didn't need to worry that we didn't have our car.

There was a walking path along the edge of the South Rim that was easily accessible from the village, so we spent some time enjoying the weather and the view before heading to our hotel.

We stayed at the Maswik Lodge, which was just very basic, lodge-type accommodations.

The nice thing about it was the little porch, where we were able to sit in the morning and enjoy the sunshine.

The one thing I found disconcerting at the Grand Canyon was the lack of places to eat!  The one sit-down restaurant was fully booked, the other was closed due to covid, and the only other place to eat was the Maswik Lodge Food Court.

Unfortunately, the food court turned out to be a bust....again because of covid.   Most of it was closed down and there was a very limited selection of not-the-greatest food.   I would imagine the food was more available and better prepared if it wasn't during covid time.

Tag enjoyed his carrot cake for breakfast out on the deck.

In the morning, we went and took the "red line" shuttle which brought you all along the South Rim to the destination that was the furthest out.....Hermit's Rest.   There were about 10 or so stops along the way where you could hop off, stay as long as you wanted, then hop back on.  

We stopped at every stop, and every view was different.  We just could not stop taking photos!  I believe in all, for the entire trip, we probably took about 1200 photos.  And, as they say, the photos don't do it justice.

Hermit's Rest.....if you stand under the bell you'll have good luck.

So many people told him not to fall off.......he just had to do it!

After our train ride back to Williams, we hopped in the car and drove over to Kingman, AZ to stay the night and get ready to drive up to the West Side of the Grand Canyon.