Day 5 — to the Grand Canyon

We woke everyone at 6:30, pulled some food out of the back of the Teardrop for breakfast, ate granola bars, hard boiled eggs and oranges in the Wigwam Motel parking lot, loaded up the car and backtracked down the road to the Petrified Forest National Park.

We got there early enough to tackle a few miles of hiking before the sun got too high and the heat too intense. Even though a stiff breeze kept us comfortable, it was already 90 degrees by 10 a.m., and we were starting to wind down. So we hit a few scenic overlooks and poked around the Painted Desert Inn — which hasn’t served guests in decades, but which is open for visitors to explore — before heading back to the Visitors Center for lunch and Charlie and Clare’s Junior Ranger initiation ceremony.

The lunch counter in the Painted Desert Inn, which was open to guests for decades, and which is now on the National Register of Historic Places. 

Painted Desert Inn

We got back on the I-40 and pointed ourselves toward the Grand Canyon. We estimated that the trip would take three hours and that we would have gobs of time to get settled in and cleaned up before our 8 p.m. dinner reservations at the swanky El Tovar Dining Room.

Of course, our time en route, as always, took much longer than planned. And when we finally got to the Grand Canyon National Park entrance, we got caught in a tangle of incoming traffic: two long lines of vehicles waiting to pay their park entrance fees. 

Thirty minutes later, we were through the gate and trucking along toward the Grand Canyon Village when suddenly the peaceful parkway turned into a circus of shuttle buses, traffic and parked cars amid a maze of roundabouts and one-way loops, service roads and parking lots spread out over 30 miles along the South Rim, connecting the Desert View area, the Visitors Center Complex, the Market Plaza and the historic Grand Canyon Village.

My family knows that I have a very meticulous system in place when it comes to planning these trips. Back in February and March, I researched every available camping spot at the Grand Canyon Village Mather Campground. I printed out a map of the campground, used a highlighter to mark every spot that was available July 11 and 12, considered all of them, and then chose absolute best campsite, circled it in pen and drew a big arrow pointing to it. 

I did all of that, it seems, and then I forgot to actually reserve the campsite. Two nights before our departure — as in, on July 5 — I spent time pulling all of our reservations together into a binder that we take with us in the car. I couldn’t find the campground reservation for the Grand Canyon. I logged in to the online reservation system, but there was no record of it. I called and spoke with a reservations agent, and although she did find our reservations for Assateague Island and Shenandoah National Park from 2012, she could find no reservations for our upcoming trip to the Grand Canyon. 

Because I never made them. Ooops.

So, at 9 p.m. two nights before our departure, I frantically tried to patch the gaping two-night whole in our itinerary. The Mather Campground was completely booked, of course, one week out at one of the most popular national parks. The only other national park campground on the South Rim is the Desert View, which has sites available on a first-come, first-served basis, and which reportedly fills up by mid-morning. I didn’t want to bank on the slim possibility that we could snag a site without a solid back-up plan, so I scrapped that idea.

Another option was to stay at the KOA in Williams, 60 miles south of the Grand Canyon, but we’d have to commute to and from the national park and that would limit our time to only part of one day, which would be a bummer. I had fantasized about walking to the rim to see the sunrise. You can’t do that from 60 miles away. I officially scrapped this plan, when I read on TripAdvisor that the KOA is a so-so place to camp, but only if you can snag a site away from the cinder block wall. Um … no thanks.

On a whim, I called the reservations line for the Grand Canyon lodges — there are six strung along the South Rim offering a range of accommodations, from no-frills to upscale, but these rooms often book up 13 months in advance, and last-minute reservations are nearly impossible to come by. But by some minor miracle, the agent found a room (for five people, no less!) at the El Tovar, the grandest of the South Rim lodges. Of course, I snagged it.

I was disappointed that we’re not camping at the Grand Canyon, but at the same time, super stoked to have found a room in a primo lodge right on the rim!

So today we wound our way through the South Rim sprawl and found the El Tovar. A sign posted at the steep driveway warns that vehicles over 20 feet should not make the trip, so Keith dropped me off and had to keep moving, fending for himself in the clustercuss of traffic around the Grand Canyon Village loop, since there was absolutely no parking available on the road. I ran up to the hotel to check in, and a kind bellman offered to lead Keith all the way to a parking lot a few miles away, then give Keith a ride back in the hotel van.

Designed to look like a cross between a Swiss chalet and a Norwegian villa by Charles Wittlesey, the chief architect for the Aitchison, Topeka, Santa & Fe railroad line, El Tovar opened in 1905 as a luxury destination resort. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1987 and is considered (according to Wikipedia) to be the crown jewel of all national park lodges. The hotel has hosted such luminaries as Albert Einstein, Western author Zane Grey and Sir Paul McCartney, among others (see below).

Again, on a whim, when I checked in, I asked if there were any suites available, and if we could upgrade. I knew from TripAdvisor that the a few of the El Tovar suites have balconies that look right out over the rim, and I knew from speaking with the reservations agent that the price per night for a suite is not outrageous — not out of our reach — especially when you consider that the view itself is priceless. 

Again, a minor miracle. The Presidential Suite is available, just for tonight. Again, I snagged it. The front desk hostess recommended that we cancel our reservations at the El Tovar dining room and order dinner in our room, so that we can enjoy it on the balcony. And then she handed me a sheet of paper listing the names of presidents who have stayed in this very suite. And Brian, the bellhop, let it slip to Keith and Oprah stayed in this suite last week.

The room itself is fine. Cozy and nicely appointed. But the private balcony. Holy Cow, the balcony. It’s big enough to host ballroom dance classes, and it’s 35 feet from the edge of the Grand Canyon. I usually have no problem coming up with words. I’ve just spent 1,100 words chronicling breakfast in a parking lot and a three-hour drive on I-40, for God’s sake. But I’m at a loss to describe this exquisitely gobsmacking view, or this entire experience.

The balcony

The view from our balcony.

Oprah slept in this room last week.

I’ll let Theodore Roosevelt, who stayed in this very suite, expound. His remarks are displayed on a plaque over our bed: “"The Grand Canyon fills me with awe. It is beyond comparison—beyond description; absolutely unparalleled through-out the wide world. … Let this great wonder of nature remain as it now is. Do nothing to mar its grandeur, sublimity and loveliness. You cannot improve on it. But what you can do is to keep it for your children, your children's children, and all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American should see."

We ordered dinner and a bottle of wine and watched the sunset. And when it got too dark to see anything, we went inside and played National Park Matching Game. I made the Grand Canyon match, which the South Rim right outside our door.

Dinner on the balcony