Lake Havasu is known for it's extremely high temperatures in summertime.
Days are normally quite sunny and warm in springtime as well. But El Nino is messing everything up lately. Yesterday it wasn't very warm (we even had snow) so today we didn't expect high temperatures. When we woke up and looked out of the window we saw a clear blue sky. The weather looked perfectly fine.

We had a breakfast buffet at JB's (cheap, but quite good) and after we fueled up our car (there aren't many filling stations in the desert) we continued our tour. Fuel prices are extremely low in the States (about $1.20 a gallon (=3,8 liter)). In Holland we have to pay three times more).

Today we planned to drive to the Grand Canyon. First we drove up north to Topock and we enjoyed the beautiful landscape. In Topock we turned right on to the most famous highway in the world: ROUTE 66. This part of route 66 goes directly to Williams.

We enjoyed the first part, even though the speed limit was only 45 mph. This part is called the Gold road and is a scenic route. There are actually a couple of little villages in the middle of nowhere where they still dig for gold.

We stopped a few times to take pictures of the beautiful scenery.

After a few hours Route 66 started to bore us a little. The first part had beautiful scenery and steep hills, but the second part was quite tedious. Therefore we decided to get back onto Interstate 40 when we had the chance. That chance came 35 miles later in Seligman. Interstate speed limit is 75 mph, so the last 45 miles to Williams was done in about 35 minutes.

As we got closer to Williams it became colder and everything was covered with snow on the higher levels. We had seen on television the other day that everything in Flagstaff (30 miles from Williams) was closed because of the snow.

In Williams we took highway 64 north, straight to the Grand Canyon.
Millions of people visit the Grand Canyon each year. Most people stay overnight in Williams, 60 miles of the Canyon, but we wanted to stay closer.
Hotels in the national parks are extremely expensive. So we decided to get a room in Tusayan. This is a little village a few miles from the Grand Canyon. There are some hotels, restaurants and shops.
Nobody actually wants to live there, which is partly why everything is so expensive. Employees are paid high wages and supplied with free accommodation. There are other reasons why everything is so expensive, partly because there are so many tourists, but also because there is no drinking water available. They have to transport it with big trucks all the way from Williams. We were surprised that even the prices at MacDonald's were higher, though there was a sign apologizing for this. Behind that Macs was a large house to accommodate the employees.

Our hotel looked pretty nice and was (like everything else) covered with snow.
Our room was really fantastic. The rest of the hotel was pretty good as well. I still don't get why this hotel was so cheap when we booked it. It appeared to be the best hotel of our trip and was also one of the cheapest.

It was about 3 p.m. and we decided to check out the Canyon. About 7 miles later we got sight of the first viewing point (Mather point). We parked the car and walked to the Canyon. I will never forget that first impression. I knew the Grand Canyon was big, but it made me feel so small. When you see the photo below you will know what I mean!

The rim of the Canyon was covered with snow, which is quite special. Most people visit the Grand Canyon in extremely high temperatures. Not us, it was pretty cold and we were glad we put on our winter jackets.

After a while we drove back to Tusayan and had dinner in Denny's (again). Back in the hotel we did some laundry and Linda and I checked out the swimming pool.

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