Day #11: June 22nd - Las Vegas

We got a leisurely morning start.  We did notice that despite the full kitchen, it did not have a coffee maker.  Then we realized that it must be because we were in St George, Utah which is a Mormon town.

No problem.

We had muffins, bananas, grapes and some of our bottled water.

We then took a short trip to see the beautiful Mormon Temple.













And then we were on our way again back to Las Vegas.

We were back in Vegas where it all started.

Art spoke again with Carol from Las Vegas' Baggage Claim who asked for all the pertinent information from American.

So our question is...

How did our carry-on gate check-in at  Honolulu's Hawaiian Airlines flight to Las Vegas end up in Texas at American Airlines?

And why did it take so long to find when it was supposed to be tagged by Hawaiian Airlines at the gate and had my own personal luggage tag with contact information on it?

Well... we still weren't sure what was going to happen.  We still didn't know if everything in it was still there.

Art's favorite travel clothes were in there along with our original chargers.

We couldn't dwell on it. We had only a day left to our trip.

We checked back into the California Hotel and Casino.

We went out to dinner at P.F. Chang's in the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino and had a great time.










Mom was agog at all the frenzy and glitz of Vegas.

We loved the fountains at the Bellagio with synchronized fountain and music.  The portable chair came in really handy.  Thank you for that advice, Kay of An Unfittie's Guide to Adventurous Travel.  We must have stayed there for about an hour watching three or four sets of the fountain performances.  Mom loved it!

We saw a little more of the night lights before returning to the California hotel.

However, before we went in, we took mom to Freemont Street for a look at all the hustle and bustle there.

Art and I were pretty worn out, burning the last of our remaining adrenalin for  the day ahead.

Mom was tired, but happy with her memories of all that she'd seen.

Day #10: June 21 Grand Canyon North Rim

We got up at 7:30 and made coffee.  Art and I went out to get muffins and bananas for our breakfast at The Coffee Shop and Roughrider Saloon.

The freshly baked muffins were really great, by the way.

We went to the Visitors Center.

I loved watching the ranger give the park oath to children who were becoming Junior Rangers.

They promised to learn and experience everything they could and to share their knowledge after they left the parks.

Mom wanted a calendar she saw of the canyons national parks so we were very happy to get it for her.

She wanted to remember everything she'd experienced so far.

There was something about that north rim of the Grand Canyon that really appealed to mom.

It may have been the clearer views of the canyons.

It may have been the lack of crowds and more peaceful feeling.

We stopped at Point Imperial and Roosevelt Point where the views were really stunning!

However, what I really think mom enjoyed were our stops to photograph all the wildflowers we saw.

I don't know what these were.

I knew what these were because I'd seen photos of them at the Visitors Center.

I'm not positive this is an aster. 

The color and markings on the flax were really beautiful.

I've loved lupins ever since I saw them in Canada many years ago.

We did see this Penstemon everywhere we traveled on this trip.

There were also beautiful and interesting insects to photograph.  Art found this pink grasshopper.  I've NEVER seen a pink grasshopper before.
 

We read somewhere that the bison (or are these buffalo?) were becoming a problem at the park because they were eating up a lot of the vegetation.

There was road construction on the way back to St. George which delayed our travel a bit.

And then suddenly...

Would you believe?

An e-mail popped up on my cellphone.

It was a message from American Airlines asking if I'd lost a piece of luggage.

They were writing to the e-mail I had on our missing carry-on's tag.  Neither Hawaiian nor American has access to that e-mail.

We could not believe it!

We couldn't call American because we lost reception then, but I sent an e-mail to them which I hoped would transmit as soon as there was any sort of connection.  It was Friday and they were probably no longer at work.

Art called Hawaiian Airlines to alert them to this development because it was still the middle of the day in Honolulu.  Hawaiian said we should handle it ourselves since American would probably prefer working directly with us.

We arrived in St. George.  Sheesh!  It was still HOT!

Once in St. George, I remembered that I'd taken a photo of our luggage at the start of our trip.  I always do since we'd lost our luggage (for just a day) in the Netherlands a long time ago.

I sent that photo to American Airlines.  Art called Baggage Claim in Las Vegas.  They were a LOT more proactive.  I sent them the e-mail American Airlines had sent us along  with the photo and they said they would take care of things.  However, it was the weekend so it looked like nothing could be done until we returned to Hawaii anyway.

We kept our fingers crossed.

Day #9: June 20th - Antelope Canyon

We had a lovely complimentary breakfast at the Page, Arizona Quality Inn at 7:30 and at 10:00 arrived at the Antelope Slot Canyon Tour office.

It was hot... and dry!

We were surprised to see that the tour office was packed with people.  It took quite a while to process everyone.

The Photographic Tour cost $242.10 for the three of us, $80.70 per person.

We got onto these trucks with benches in the back and had a bumpy ride to the canyon site.

It was Denise of An English Girl Rambles who posted about this site that made us want to come.  I'm very glad we did!

Rob was our tour guide.  He was really wonderful.  The first thing he told us was to take our cameras off of automatic.  We needed to set the white balance to cloudy.  He was also politely assertive telling other tour groups to move out of our camera range since he was conducting a photographic tour.

I wasn't prepared for how crowded the canyon was!  Although there are some photography tours that will not allow point and shoot cameras, this tour was not strict.  In fact, there were only three people with really high powered single lens reflex cameras.

Several of the tour directors were throwing sand into the sunbeams to make our photos more dramatic.

What many didn't realize is how much dust and sand was being thrown into the air.  I saw one Japanese group go by wearing masks. That would be a wise thing to do if you're going to do this tour.

The colors of the canyon were absolutely gorgeous!

Yes, I do have photos without people but when I remember the experience, it's the crowds of people that I remember the most.

Rob told us to put our hands in the sunbeam and he took our photo.

Would you believe someone chose this place to do a proposal?

I never got to see which girl in the crowd this was intended for.

We headed out of the canyon only to find that our truck would not start.

 

There was about a half hour wait for the next tour to arrive so we could use their truck to return.

Thank goodness we had that portable chair so mom could sit and relax while we wandered around taking more photos.

As soon as we got back we headed out toward Grand Canyon's north rim.











We passed Lake Powell on the way.  The blue green color was really startling against the red and white rocks.

We arrived at around 6:00 and the lodge restaurant was already booked until 8:30 so we ate a pizza next door at the Deli in the Pines instead and went to our cabin.

We let mom rest at the cabin while Art and I went to the gift shop.  He was able to find a t-shirt and I got my souvenir mug. 

This was the first time mom had been in a log cabin and she was awed by the experience. There are two rooms per cabin and the connecting door must be made of paper because we could hear every word the kids were saying and shouting on the other side.  We finally had to knock on the door to ask for a little quiet.  It wasn't perfect after that, but we were so tired we fell right asleep.

Day #8: June 19th - Grand Canyon, South Rim

We told mom that we didn't have to wake up early on this morning, but she got up at 5:30 anyway and told us her glasses had fallen apart.  She was so upset that we got up and Art managed to fix it using one of my hair clips.

We grabbed a quick breakfast at the lodge cafeteria, checked out and caught the shuttle to Mohave Point.

This is when we learned that there was a park newspaper written in Japanese with lots of information that mom loved reading.

I could have kicked myself for not looking into this earlier.

She said the newspaper explained how people can be affected by the altitude.  We didn't know that her chest had been hurting her and that she was having a little difficulty catching her breath.

The canyon was beautiful, but there was a haze over it.  It was a little clearer this morning, but there was still a visible haze.  One person said it was pollution, another said it was a forest fire.

At first I thought this was a blue bird, but a sign posted said it was a scrub jay.

We went to the Visitor's Center and learned that U.S. route 89 was closed due to a terrible landslide.

This meant we'd have to take a much longer route passing Tuba City to get to Page, Arizona.

It was a long drive and we seemed to be following this lone cloud.











We reached Page at around 3:00 and registered at the Quality Inn.  I love it that they have a complimentary breakfast.

The Quality Inn is very close to the Glenn Canyon dam scenic view point.

I let Art walk down to check out the sights.

The Quality Inn had the most unusual angles to their walls.

We stopped at the Walmart again to pick up another case of bottled water. 

We kept reminding mom throughout the trip to drink, drink, drink!

The air was so much drier than in Hawaii and our noses were bleeding all the time.  Our bodies were having a difficult time adjusting to the different climate conditions.

Traveling is always interesting because you have to learn to adapt to changes.

We were trying our best.

Day #7: June 18th - Petrified Forest, Painted Desert, Meteor Crater, Grand Canyon, South Rim

Happy 4th of July everybody!!!  Have a wonderful day!

And now on to Day #7.

We got up at 5:30 and had a fruit and muffin breakfast in our Best Western room.

We left Chinle to go to the Grand Canyon's south rim.

We first stopped at the Petrified Forest National Park's Painted Desert.

We loved looking at the wildflowers along the way.





I believe this is the Deadly Nightshade again.

I don't know what kind of lizard this is.










There was a sign posted by this flower so we know it's a Yellow Wild Buckwheat.

When we last came to the Painted Desert in 1993 with the kids, I remember seeing a lot of crows.

They seemed even more assertive now.

We loved seeing all the colors at the Painted Desert.

A short distance away was the Petrified Forest.

Mom was awed by the ancient forest that had turned to stone.

Newspaper Rock had many huge rocks with writing done by ancient people over 2,000 years ago.  The petroglyphs were fun to see.

After leaving the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest we continued on our way to the Grand Canyon's south rim.  A sign advertising a Meteor Crater on the roadside near Winslow caught my eye.  The crater was formed 50,000 years ago when a large meteor fell.

It wasn't cheap to see it.  It cost $16 for adults and $15 for Seniors.

However, it was worth it.  Mom got to touch a real meteorite and even bought a small meteor piece for my brother at their gift shop.  That's mom and me at the side of the crater. 

After driving over 350 miles we reached the Grand Canyon's south rim.

We checked into our room at the Maswik Lodge which was unfortunately on the second floor with no air conditioning.  It was unbearably HOT!

We ate dinner at Maswik's cafeteria and then caught the shuttle to Pima Point to catch the sunset.

We met a British couple on the shuttle and enjoyed talking to them.

This evening mom said, "Thank you, thank you for taking care of me and showing me such amazing sights.  I can die now that I've seen so much.  I mustn't wish for more because I'll be punished for being selfish."

We would ask mom at the end of each day what she enjoyed the most during the trip and each time she would say that what she saw on that day was the best.

Today was no exception.