After spending several hours enjoying the GC, riding my bike around the area, it was back to the train, load my bike, and up to the vista car to wait. While waiting for the train to depart, I was a little unhappy with myself for not trying harder to find a place to stay up there overnight…much better opportunities for good pictures at sunset or sunrise. Maybe next time.
Quite a few people only had one way tickets so the 1st class cars were nearly empty. If I remember correctly, there are buses that take people back to Williams later in the day. Or a family member can drive up and collect everyone in their group or they had reservations at one of the hotels. Lots of ways to do it. I chose to ride the train back the same day so…off we went.
Heading back to Williams.
About an hour after we left the GC, this guy was waiting for us.
Train robber!
Pretty soon there were several riders pacing the train. Then the train stopped and they boarded. Up near the front of the train. Then the train started rolling again. Turned out they were robbing the passengers, an act of course. Took them about a half hour to get back to us. After they put on their little show, I walked out to the outdoor platform and found these guys taking a break:
The guy on the right really liked my cow hat and convinced me to sell it to him as a present for his sisters upcoming birthday. Made $12 on the deal. Almost $9 profit. Who robbed who? They went up to the vista car after their break to carry on the charade and then the sheriff shows up and arrests them.
Robbers in the roost.
Wasn’t until after they left that I realized I had a great opportunity to jump up and tell the sheriff that they’d stolen my hat, as they’d only paid $12 and it is worth at least $100. Hah!
Kind of fun for kids I guess. I enjoyed talking to the robbers and asking about the area, how they ended up doing the bit, etc.
It was interesting that the ties along the railbed were the remnants of when they were ripping out the tracks for scrap back in the ’60’s. There were thousands of them lying along the tracks rotting away. Some of them were new replacements that were scheduled to be replacing some of the ties. Read in one of the local papers that someone was trying to buy all of the older ties for gardeners. Recycling, yo.
Old cross rails along the route.
And two hours later, we were back in Williams. I’ve been on more spectacular train trips, scenery wise, but I really enjoyed this trip. Doesn’t hurt the trip that the GC is at one end of it.
Back in Williams.
Spent another couple days at the GC RR RV park and was enjoying the weather and town enough that I decided to spend another week in town. But since the Passport America discount only applied for one week, I moved to the other side of the freeway where the rates were far more reasonable. To GC Gateway RV Park. I had called around looking for the best rates in the area and most all of them were steep, except for this park. So, off I went. If you click on the link, the home page shows the view you have from some sites. When I was searching for a new place to stay in Williams, I found that nearly all of them had rates nearly as high as the KOAs did. $40 to $45 per night. And all the parks I visited or passed by had many empty spaces. I imagine during the summer that they make a fortune what with the 2-4 million yearly visitors to the GC, most of them during the summer.
All settled in.
The services here were set up a little strange but nothing a seasoned RV’er can’t handle. I wasn’t getting very good WiFi so they let me move closer to the antenna and that helped quite a bit.
Entrance to the park.
Fairly nice park. Clean facilities, flat spots, refreshing water, quiet. They do have cable, just eight stations, but what more do you need? Stayed here a week and could still ride my bike downtown as it’s only a couple miles from the park. Although they don’t have a weekly rate, they do have several 10% discounts so I ended up paying $27/day. A little high. Of course that’s because this is a tourist area.
Some people over there.
Nice and quiet here.
Clouds rolling in.
We did get a cloud cover for a couple days. Even one day where the clouds were so low we had mist all day. Then the rains came. After it cleared up, back to sunshine and fluffy white clouds, oh, and warm too.
Next, I head to Flagstaff and afterwards to Aztec, NM. Where you’ll find the worlds biggest discovered and rebuilt ancient kiva. Very interesting. Stay tuned. Thanks for reading.