Tuesday, 7/19, Travel from Los Angeles, CA to Kingman, AZ

When we got back last night from Universal Studios and after having dinner,
Chavee, Vic, Karen, and I sat down to figure out a plan for the Grand Canyon.  Turns
out we weren't getting rid of them so fast after all.  They decided to come
join the fun in Arizona!  They haven't been there in quite some time and wanted
to see the new SkyWalk that juts out over the canyon on land that belongs to the
neighboring Native American reservation.

I hadn't really looked closely at the map, so our original plan was to stay a
few nights in Flagstaff, which is "close" to the South Rim (1.5 hour drive). 
But it turns out that the SkyWalk is actually on the West Rim, 2-3 hours closer
than the South Rim.  So I checked out the hotel situation and was able to change
the reservation to stay in Kingman, AZ for two nights and then move on to
Flagstaff for one night.  Kingman is about a five hour drive from LA (and the
Marriott points are less than the hotel in Flagstaff to boot!).  It's about a
1.5 hour drive to the SkyWalk from Kingman.

This morning we ran some errands to restock some food and packed our stuff up,
and said goodbye to everyone (although we missed Elianna, but she left a note
for us that she'll see us in Edison - she goes to Rutgers.  Oh, and Yael had
slept over at a friend so we missed her too!).  Ziggy took it especially hard to
see us leave.  We picked up a couple of movies at RedBox for the ride and left
LA at around noon.

Is that a tear I see, Ziggy??

Heading out of LA

I drove for about 2.5 hours and then started getting pretty tired (remember,
it was a fast day today, so no food/drink since last night).  Karen had taken
full advantage of the two hours and got a good nap in.  She took over and
finished the drive.  It was pretty darn hot outside.  I also saw what I thought
were sprinklers on in the distant desert fields along the highway (US 40).  But
upon further inspection, I think they were small dust storms that looked like
mini tornados.  They were whipping around in a circular motion.  A bunch of them
were around.

It actually hit 112F for a bit, but not long enough to realize and get a picture

Crossing the Colorado at CA/AZ border

No, the people in the picture were not running across the highway; they got out to take pictures (I think)

We got to the hotel around 5:00PM MST.  It's the exact same design as the nice
hotel we had in Grand Junction, CO. We didn't have to change our clocks/watches
since Arizona is in the Mountain time zone, but they don't have daylight savings
time (some areas might, I've been told), so the net effect is no change in time.
We rested up for a bit and then headed to Walmart to get some groceries and
stuff.  The fast was over at 8:39PM.  It was a long day, but it was better to be
in the car with the A/C on than anywhere outside in the area.

Chavee and Vic will be heading here tonight or early tomorrow morning.  They
plan to do a helicopter tour and river landing and then we'll meet them for the
SkyWalk.  You have to do some other tour given by the Native American tribe
($$$) in order to even get access to do the SkyWalk (more $$$)!  We'll be able
to sleep in a bit in the morning, so that will be a nice change.