Chloride

To end our fabulous mini-vacay, we visited the big ditch.  En route to the Grand Canyon, we drove a good 8 hours through the desert.  

We were trying to figure out where in the Grand Canyon we were wanting to go, and what we wanted to see.  In the middle of the desert, we saw a sign pointing toward a station full of Grand Canyon information.  We decided to head toward the station, so we turned down a tiny side-road that seemed to go on forever.  

Finally, we wound up in the tiny living ghost town of Chloride.  We stopped at a little shack of a store and I seriously debated whether we should actually go in.  Take a look at this picture, there's a coffin on the patio.  Need I say more?

Well, we went in anyway.  I was greeted by a man in all denim and a cowboy hat, with a foot long beard to boot.  He told us all about the little town with a whopping population of 200.

After spending a good twenty minutes with us, reviewing his town's history, we walked around and snapped a few photos.  Austin purchased his sling shot in that man's shop and practiced shooting rocks.

Here's Austin walking out of the saloon that was part of a set for a shootout that the town performs every Saturday. 

Since the man spent so much time with us filling us in on the town's history, I felt compelled to purchase this Shea butter that he told me all about.

Our hands did manage to get pretty dry in the desert.  And this stuff smelled pretty great.  I'm pretty sure it permeated my car though... oh well, at least it smells good!

We gathered up our information collected for Grand Canyon, and took off into the sunset (actually, opposite the sunset, but that doesn't have quite as nice of a ring to it..).

We happened upon Route 66 and drove through a little town called Williams. It was there that we stopped to eat at Rod's Famous Steakhouse. Man, oh man, were they de-lish. I'd have to give this restaurant a 9 in my book. Not a 10 because the bathroom stalls only reached waist high (weird, right?) and they were transparent like a shower door with tempered glass (weirder, right?) But the steaks... oh man they were good!
 

Once devouring some prime rib and baked potatoes, we continued our adventure to the grand canyon.

We took the second star to the right (actually, the left) (and actually it was an intersection, not a star..)and went straight on till morning (or about 10pm).

We were only miles from the grand canyon, finally.