Grand Canyon A Bust

So I left Santa Ana after having a great time with Candy and her hubby, Brian. Dobie got to spend his last day in california at a dog park which he LOVED. I headed to the coast to pick up a woman named Deb which was through a Rideshare thing. She was great and paid for my first In-n-Out Burger experience and chipped in majorly for gas. I got her to Henderson, NV and then took a drive on the Vegas Strip (NOT what I expected). Unfortunately since it was Friday night it was way to busy for me to leave dobie in a car for me to get out and walk around. So I headed to the Grand Canyon Skywalk.

Firstly, you have to drive down this LONG dirt path at 15 miles an hour for 20 miles. Unfortunately when I got to the end of that the "Reservation (Park)" was closed. There's nothing out there at all and no place that you are allowed to camp. Just Park Rangers that direct you to this Ranch which costs $85 a night plus tax and they have kennels for your dog outside which cost $40 a night. Well that's a big fat NO for dobie and I since we aren't spending money on hotels at all. They then give me information on the pricing for the Skywalk... WOW- just to see it is $43 and to go out on it is $95! WHAT?! That's CRAZINESS! So I explained what I am doing and all that and was informed that they would give me a group discount if I had Autistic kids with me but they wont give me a discount for just coming by myself. and the discount would be $35 a person to see it and $75 a person to go out on it. HA! NOT this girl. So I turned around and started down the LONG dirt path again. It's very windy and obvious you are going through the canyon a bit, it was pitch dark and that area was doing crazy funny things to my camera, it wouldnt allow me to manual focus or auto focus, not to mention my computer wouldnt turn on there and my phone mysteriously turned off even though it was fully charged and it had no signal at all to do anything. It was quite odd in there. I finally got out and almost hit a wolf again. (I really do think those big dogs are out to get me on this trip- third one I almost hit in my journey)

I found an abandoned restaurant along highway 93 in arizona that 3 trucks were parked at so I stopped and spent the night. I must say it's amazing to wake up to the sun peaking over the mountain tops. (look at Candid America: Arizona for pics). Some of the roads were absolutely breathe taking but you couldnt pull over for photos. I stopped in a little town that had a service station that looked just like the service station in the Disney Movie CARS.. you know the one the lil' french car owned that had all the tires. After stopping I was told that the actual town was two exits down and 2 hours away down on Rt 66. I was gonna go but decided to pass. there's a tow truck service there really called Mater. and the town evidently looks just like what Disney depicted in the movie. SUPER Impressed but I'd take the girl's word for it cause it would have added 5 hours to my journey and I definitely didn't have the gas money for that! I actually don't have the gas money to make it to Austin yet so I am going to be camping in my car for 3 nights till I can afford it. Not stressed. Hopefully I will get some pretty awesome photos along the way then.

I must admit though- with almost 200 people viewing my site I am a little shocked that there has been no one to donate to the cause. When you click donate there is a comment box that you can type in if you just want it to go to Autism Awareness, if you want a portion to go to my gas/food, and if you'd like a photo.