Oklahoma City, Grand Canyon & Page, Arizona
If you want to get A LOT of miles and activities in on a short period of time, this itinerary is for you!
Day 1- Leave from Oklahoma City headed West
Points of interest along the route. There are lots of opportunities to see old Route 66 Memorabilia along the way. If you have lots of time and want to make several stops along the way, these may be interesting. At least for a photo anyway!
- Lucille’s Historical Highway Gas Station – after Hinton, OK
https://www.travelok.com/listings/view.profile/id.14568
- Wind Turbine Blade Display -Weatherford, OK
https://cityofweatherford.com/wind-towers/
Stop and Eat at the Legendary Big Texan, Amarillo, TX
I was pleasantly surprised at how good the food and the service was at The Big Texan! It is home of the 72 oz steak eating competition. It is live streamed if anyone wants to watch at any time. They serve hot rolls when you sit down and we all got a small filet steak that was very good! There is a gift shop and lots to look at. It’s an exceptional stop to stretch your legs and get something good to eat!
Another Point of Interest is the Cadillac Ranch. You can easily get off the interstate and pull off onto the service road and see it from the road or get out of your car and walk to see the Cadillac’s stuck nose first into the ground up close.
Along the route we stopped from fuel and ice cream at the Bowlin’s Flying C Ranch, Interstate 40 W, Santa Rosa, NM. (575) 472-5116. It is about 0.16 miles to exit 267 of I-40 and about 4.20 miles to exit 263 of I-40. It had good bathrooms, some interesting shopping and souvenirs and lots of gas station food options. There was a DQ and I know that a dip cone and mini Blizzard was consumed at this stop.
Stopped for the night in Gallup, NM
The downtown area and historic Route 66 is really neat to see. We ate at El Rancho. The old Route 66 downtown has old neon signs on some businesses and souvenir shops.
Day 2 Left Gallup, NM
Stopped at The Petrified Forrest National Park. It was easy access of the interstate. It was worth the stop!
We did a couple of the small hikes, we saw the painted desert and saw petrified wood scattered over the desert. It’s hard to describe the whole scene. You really need to see it for yourself.
Next stop was The Meteor Crater. This is definitely a tourist attraction! But it was very interesting and a well displayed interactive stop! It was interesting! Kid friendly and had great photo opportunities. Check prices on the link, if that matters to you.
We kept up the pace and drove onto Sedona, AZ. We put the trail head to the Devil’s Bridge Hike on our GPS and didn’t look back.
This picture does not do it justice. It was a very strenuous hike. But the views and the pictures were definitely worth it. The kids loved it!
We ate in Sedona. There are numerous choices to eat there! We choose a pizza place and of course found some ice cream to end the day!
We drove back to Flagstaff, AZ to stay the night.
Day 3
Left Flagstaff, AZ for The Grand Canyon, south rim. It was a beautiful drive all along the way. Lots of landscape to keep you occupied during the drive. The Grand Canyon train parallels the highway coming from Flagstaff, so it was fun seeing it as we were all making our way to the Grand Canyon.
Next stop The Grand Canyon! It is indescribable! It doesn’t look real! It’s just so hard to wrap your mind around! You HAVE to see it!!
We walked the South Rim on the paved walk way. It is just beautiful! We stopped and ate lunch then went and hiked down into the Canyon. That hike was called Bright Angle. It had 3 different options of distances, we opted for the 1.5 mile and we were tired when we were done. It was pretty steep getting out of it. But so worth it! It was so cool to go down into The Grand Canyon!
We didn’t rush at all or hurry, but when we were finished headed for Page, AZ. Made it there in time to eat dinner and call it a day!
Day 4
Had a reservation at Ken’s Lower Antelope Canyon for the 9 am tour. You really need to book in advance for this tour! We had been on the lower antelope canyon tour and really wanted to see the Upper Canyon but it was all booked up. This one is an hour long tour and worth the time and money!
This is so hard to describe because you take a couple staircases down into these cracks in the ground and then have these beautiful formations with sunlight beaming down. Really a place you have to see for yourself!
This is Dusty coming out of the canyon! See what I mean, you can’t even imagine!
From Antelope Canyon we drove to Lee’s Ferry, in Glen Canyon. I know I have been saying throughout this post, it’s “indescribable”, “you have to see it for yourself”, “there are no words to describe it”. However, I cannot even begin to tell you what this next adventure we did was like. It was INCREDIBLE!!!!
We rented kayaks and paid to have us back hauled in Glen Canyon, up the Colorado River! You’ve seen the iconic photo of the Horseshoe Bend in the Colorado River? Well, we kayaked it!
The water was crystal clear and the cliffs that surrounded the river are incredible. The river flows 3 to 4 miles per hour so you really don’t even have to paddle. I would do this again any day! So peaceful and beautiful!
After we finished our kayak trip, which we took 3 or 4 hours to do. There are shorter ones, so don’t panic. But after you are out there on the water you won’t want to come back. We drove back to Page, AZ so we could see the Horseshoe Bend from the top. It is a popular stop and there were lots of people taking the trail to get photo’s and to see it for themselves. The sun sets right over the top of this, so if you are getting there late in the evening, you will not regret the views!
After we ate dinner in Page, we started our trek back towards Oklahoma.
If you have any questions or would like additional information about this itinerary, please send me an email and I will try to help the best I can, clarie@clariedennis.com.
Clarie
