Day # 42 - Williams, AZ

Today was kind of an odd day. We had planned on going back to the Grand Canyon today, but everyone was pretty tired when we woke up this morning. Tony had not slept very well and neither had AJ. Since they both suffer from allergy related asthma maybe they both reacted to something yesterday that had gotten them both congested and made for a restless night. Then we got a call from Tony’s Mom saying that she had woken up feeling very bad.

We decided to take it easy and make a leisurely breakfast. After breakfast though the kids started to get a little antsy so we thought we would drive into Williams to check out the Route 66 Historic section. You find that as you travel throughout the southwest that many of the towns that were situated along Route 66 now have historic areas with diners and museums and other touristy things to help you spend your vacation dollars. Williams had a nice downtown area with a modern visitor’s center. We stopped in to make use of the facilities and ended up hanging out for a while checking out some of their regional displays and perusing the information. There were several restaurants that looked good, but Tony seemed partial to Pancho McGillicuddy’s – I think it had something to do with the name.

Anyway, we set out to walk around the town and to check out the sights. Alice realized very quickly that her chest was too tight and congested to be out walking around so we dropped her off in one of the diners to relax and read while we looked around a bit. We made a few smashed pennies and looked at some of the historical markers (“what’s a brothel, mommy?”) and stopped in the candy store for a sugar buzz. The girls were excited about all of the Route 66 signs (too many viewings of the Cars movie, boy are my children becoming the products of marketing). We picked Nana up and headed back to the campground for naps.

The laundry was starting to pile up so I headed over to the camp office and spent the better portion of my afternoon trying to do a few loads of laundry. This particular campground had only 4 washers for the whole camp. Needless to say it was a bit busy. After laundry we took the opportunity to take a hayride pulled by a team of beautiful horses while Tony finished up making dinner. They were pretty excited to take a ride pulled by horses instead of the usual tractors we had seen in some of the other campgrounds. After the ride, one of the handlers let the kids pet the horses. It was a big hit! We got everyone to bed in the hopes that Nana would be feeling better tomorrow for a visit to Montezuma’s Castle.