Let me fill you in on how the rest of the trip ended up.
I started my Friday in
Seligman AZ. This was the nearest town to where I was going to head north to see the Grand Canyon. The town has this awesome diner called
Westside Lilo's Cafe. This place is awesome. It seems that all of the locals eat there, and it has a very open and comfortable environment. I highly recommend it. I headed north to visit the grand canyon from
Seligman using some roads highlighted on my mapping software. I got about 25 miles out of town and discovered that the next step was "Turn left on local road." "Local Road" means road without a name. Roads without names generally aren't ones to be driving on. It turns out that this road was a gravel one about 20 miles long leading to the Grand Canyon. While I am generally excited about alternative experiences of national parks, I'm not so excited about them when I am driving a vehicle that is wholly unprepared for the roads leading to them. (MINI Coopers don't have the suspension, or clearance for the rough roads I was anticipating)
I decided that the right thing to do was to turn around. This meant that if I wanted to see the Grand Canyon (It would be a shame to miss it) I would be adding another 120 miles of driving to my day. I decided to go for it. I had to drive back through
Seligman, and east to Williams. While in Williams, I decided to stop for a quick bite at
McDonalds.
I drove up to see the park, it was worth the trip, even though it was overcast. I took a large 2d set of panoramic shots that I hope to assemble into a large panorama. If it works out, it should be very cool.
I made my way to
Las Vegas after that. Over the course of the trip, I wasn't feeling too well. I believe that I got food poisoning at the
McDonalds in Williams. ugh.
Like the other places I stopped, I didn't make any reservations in
Las Vegas. Bad idea.
Las Vegas on a Friday night is VERY busy. I pulled up to the
Bellagio to find out that they were full. I pulled around the block to an empty parking lot, and jumped on some hotel's free
wifi. All of the hotels on the strip were booked solid. The closest hotel I could find to the strip was the Hard Rock, and the room was $450. The room was awesome, and the hotel very cool, but unfortunately I didn't really enjoy it, being sick and all.
I left Vegas Saturday morning and headed east. I stayed the next night in
Ventura and drove the pacific coast highway north to home on Sunday morning.
All in tall the trip was great. The last couple of days could have been better, but I guess it was good to get food poisoning at the end, rather than somewhere in the middle. :^)
