Monday, September 24, 2012

September 24, 2012

OUR DRIVE FROM LAS VEGAS TO WILLIAMS, ARIZONA was both scenic and restful: no steep mountain driving. However, we are again in the maw of Xanaterra, that grasping, greedy monopoly.  I was surprised to find that we have free WiFi here.

Xanaterra's "lodge" has a very confusing layout. In fact, when you check in you are given a two-sided map, one for side for each floor, which shows exactly what a labyrinth they created. Theseus could not find his way out this place. In fact, some senior citizens have become lost for days.


I am getting car-lag. When we drove to Las Vegas, we were on Pacific time. Williams is on Mountain time, normally a hour later than Pacific time. I say "normally," because Williams does not buy into daylight savings time. As a result, the time here is the same as it is in Las Vegas. This is almost as confusing as Indiana where parts of the state are on Central time and other parts are on Eastern time. In addition, Indiana counties can choose whether they want to buy into "fast time," a localism for daylight savings time.

Tomorrow, we take a train ride to the Grand Canyon and a bus tour once we get there. Then, we return here. The train cars are really old; they are so old that some of them are exactly like the ones the Illinois Central used well into the 1960s. When the IC finally replaced them, they replaced them with ones exactly like the lighter colored ones below.  The old cars were far better built. While the IC was phasing in the newer cars, there was an accident where some of the new cars collided with the old cars: 39 people were killed. After the collision, the new cars looked like tin cans that had been ripped open. I hope that we get on one of the old cars tomorrow.


















When we return from the canyon, we will drive into the heart of Grand Canyon National Park and stay for several days at one of the Xanaterra run lodges. If the lodge in the park charges $15 an hour to use WiFi, we may be off line for a few days.

4 comments:

  1. Since you literally in the wild west, I thought I should update the two of you that the Pack FINALLY got their comeuppance for the infamous "Instant Replay Game of 1989" (ha)!

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  2. I hope your silence means you do not have Wi-Fi and not that you were stuck in a newer train car with disastrous results.

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  3. Ted,

    When are you going to stop going "Wolf Wolf Wolf" like all the pencil-necked or pot-gutted Bear fans and see the greatness of the team from that small town in Wisconsin.

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    1. C'mon now, those whose fans who where hats of cheese are not allowed to cut down another team's fan base! Speaking of our cheesy neighbors to the north, can you imagine how conflicted Gov. Walker must feel today now that the union refs are back on the job?

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