Leslie and David's Wanderings: 16 October 2021 Grand Canyon Railroad

One of the last things we had planned in this area was to take the Grand Canyon Railroad up to the south rim of the Grand Canyon the way people have traveled there since 1906. The train we were on was not a steam engine though. They only run the historic steam engines on the first Saturday of each month from 1 April through 30 September. So we had the 1950s era diesel locomotives. The train on this day had a lot of cars attached as there were a lot of visitors going up to the Grand Canyon. On the trip up we had seats up top in one of the dome cars. The view from the dome was actually quite good. We had hoped it would be scenic and we would see lots of wildlife from the upper deck. But it was not to be. We saw no wildlife on the trip up, and after being in this area for three weeks, we did not find the scenery very interesting. The train only rolls at about 25MPH, so the 64 miles up to the park took about 2.5 hours. The train crew tries to keep you entertained with stories and rotating musical entertainment. But at least it was relaxing, not having to wait in line at the entrance station or circle around looking for parking. Once we arrived at the park, we strolled up to the Bright Angel Lodge and then along the rim trail towards the Lookout and Kolb Studios and to the top of the Bright Angel trail before heading back to the El Tovar Hotel. We had made lunch reservations at the restaurant in the El Tovar in advance and as we strolled up, we received a message our table was ready and waiting for us. We got lucky and had a table right by the window looking out over the canyon. We had a leisure and delicious lunch with magnificent views over the canyon. After lunch we decided to walk off the calories and strolled along the Rim Trail towards the Geology Museum for a mile before turning back to make our train back. You only get about 3.5 hours in the park before the train leaves back to Williams and they will leave you behind if you are not on time. On the way back, we had picked one of the luxury cars (the seats had knee room and padding) for the trip back. We did see one elk along the route before the obligatory simulated western train robbery. One of the robbers took Leslie’s had and fingered her Engagement ring commenting; “I bet I could get something for that!”. Leslie was not amused. We decided that this was the first train we had been on since the train from Venice to Milan in Italy. We don’t think we would do this train ride again.