It had been a long time since I had taken any long distance road trip . Juneteenth day holiday was coming and I had been thinking about making a plan to go somewhere fun but didn't know where to go. This is summer holiday time for kids and they were excited to go somewhere out. I also wanted to break the monotonous routine which was increasing my stress level . Long weekends in US are generally busy weekends (Much busier than the weekdays :) which is funny .On Mondays everyone's question is about what you did over the weekend. Most of my long weekend plans are random and I go out without much planning. I didn't decide for this trip as well until last moment on Friday evening. I remembered seeing an ad about the Grand Canyon railroad on youtube long back . So I asked a few of my friends about it but nobody had been to the Grand Canyon railroad . I have fond memories of going on long train rides in India and always miss the train journey . When I looked it up online I saw that there are some great vacation package options available on their website.
https://www.thetrain.com/
These options looked ideal for the 2 -3 day trip I was hoping for. I booked the vacation immediately for my 2 day trip . It's a long distance drive ( ~ 8 hours or 430 miles ) that was making me a little nervous to be honest . I thought of taking one step at a time and enjoy the journey rather than only destination.
I drive an electric car so the car decides where I need to stop for the charging . It takes ~ 30 mins for the charge but it's good to explore and take a break and stretch legs .
Our journey started from Orange County and we took our first stop at Barstow . Plenty of supercharges were available at the location. Lot many food options were available like - Dairy Queen and Carls' Jr.
There were oversized chair and spoons for taking picture if anyone is interested :)
My son liked the spoon .
We started our second leg our journey after fueling ourselves and our car and the next stop was Kingman .Kingman is ~ 200 miles from Barstaw and was our second forced stop to charge the car . Kingman is a historic town on route 66 and there is a kingman historic museum . The museum has $10 fees for adults and it's free for children . We took some pictures outside and skipped the museum .
This steam engine you can visit from inside and it's mesmerizing .
Tried this huge Salad at Mr. D's Route 66 Diner at the Kingman. Could not finish the tortillas :) .My wife played safe and ordered Cheese pizza .
On the way is scenic route 66 . We stopped at Kingman for quick lunch .This is the picture spot located in front of the museum .
After checking into the hotel our first tour was the Bearizona park. It's a driveway park located at the Williams. People can drive through in their cars to see the animals . kind of like an animal Safari .
This is the Bear cave.
The next morning we barded the train to Grand canyon from Williams Station. It's 2.5 hours journey on the train powered by the steam engine. It's interesting that the engine they operate on is not run on coal but they burn the vegetable oil that is left off from the restaurants. The train runs very slow at the average speed of 40 miles an hour. It's tourist train so no wonder this is slow. On the train there are musicians that come to perform all the time. There is pantry car in the train where you can buy the sandwiches/ beer/coffee and other snacks.
Grand Canyon is the most magnificent natural wonder of the world. It truly takes the breath away .However long you marvel this wonder is not enough.
There are may different buses that run on grand canyon route for free that can be taken to go from one view point to the other. We took the train at 3:30 PM to return back to the williams to our hotel.
It was a memorable trip though it was a long drive from Irvine. We took 2 breaks to charge the car. The drive itself was 8-9 hours long but this journey was more beautiful than the destination.
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