Heading south on 89, we stopped in Tusayan, just a couple of miles from our campsite, to check out "the most watched IMAX film ever", Grand Canyon - The Hidden Secrets. It was pretty cool, and as it was the kids' first IMAX experience, they were suitably impressed. It was basically a history lesson on the canyon's habitation before colonisation, then its discovery and charting by settlers. Very interesting.
From there we continued south until we hit Route 66 at Williams, an old Wild West town, now tourist trap, in the best sense. They have the awesomely named Bearizona wildlife park, so we drove through and saw, in addition to the aforementioned bears, wolves (two kinds), bison (two kinds) and other stuff.
Then we did their walking bit and saw vv cute baby bears, vvv cute otters and really beautiful bobcats...
..but the whole was tempered by my inherent misgivings about such places and the generally less than perfect conditions. All the animals looked well cared for physically, just not necessarily that happy.
And did you know porcupines climbed trees?
They also had a bird show which was really cool.
And having now seen mountain lions in the IMAX movie, and bobcats and ringtails at Bearizona, I'm not much clearer on what it was we saw yesterday. Definitely wasn't a ringtail - they're like possums, although known as cats - and I don't think it was heavy enough for a mountain lion, but I feel like it was bigger than a bobcat, and thought it had a long tail... Oh well, I'll never know - most likely a bobcat, I think.
After that it was a late lunch on Route 66 with live music, which the boys got in on.
By then it was time to head for camp, outside Prescott, AZ. Another stunning campground - we've been really impressed with the camping infrastructure here.
Most of our stops were booked in advance online through very user-friendly government sites, and we rock up at whatever time to find our name on the post, ready and waiting. Often we don't end up speaking to anyone official. And the facilities have generally been basic - just water and toilets in most cases, as we're out in the bush - but almost always clean and functioning. The lack of showers is unfortunate but the price of wilderness...we are going to be lovely travel companions on the flight to New Orleans!
Dylan wasn't feeling well tonight, and ended up having a chunder. REALLY hoping (and expecting) that he'll be back to his usual self in the morning. We have a very long day on the road...
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