Dec 23rd. Day 14 Williams AZ

We had another great nights sleep and woke up at around 9:30am no breakfast this morning but I was awoken with a funny story, apparently in the middle of the night Lorna went to the toilet and thought she was in the hotel form last night and sat on the edge of the bath and then fell backwards into the bath apparently she was calling out for me but I was well gone, she did hurt her finger a bit, but what a funny story.
So anyway we checked out and packed the car again and thought we would trust our luck and try and see if we can walk in to the “Lower Antelope Canyon” but first we were going to a free overlook of the nearby Dam and another small canyon, which was pretty cool. We met with some locals that told us that we would probably not get into the Antelope but it was worth a try as it was only a few miles away, we pulled up into a car park full of Chinese and Indian people and was told that there was nothing until next Monday, so we thought bugger it, lets go to the next thing on our list which was “Horseshoe Canyon”. We were told that parking was a real problem and we might have to walk a long way before we even got to walk up to the canyon, as we drove up to the entrance a car left and the police women patrolling the entrance waved us in. We were so glad of the parking space as we had to walk up a steep hill and then down another steep decline to the canyons edge which took about 15 minutes, when we got there the views were fantastic and we stayed for about 20 minutes getting all sorts of photos, the really weird thing is in the last few days we have noticed that almost 95% of the people visiting these places are Chinese or Indian, and this time it was apparent again. So the walk back to the car was a little more strenuous but in no time we were back in the car and aiming for the Grand Canyon. What we had not done was fuel the car but we were so used to seeing Gas stations every 20 minutes we didn’t worry, well the US89 was going to give us a worrying trip as we hit 70 miles with no gas station and the gauge showing we had about 32 miles left, then just when we were shitting ourselves a little Indian Petrol station appeared in the distance and we were now well relieved. So it was now not possible to go to the Grand Canyon and get to a hotel in time so we headed straight to Williams in Arizona, now this was a town me and my friends stayed in in April 2011 on our Harley Road trip and I wanted to re visit a bar we went too where we pinned 9 dollar bills on the wall with our names on it just to see if they were there. But first we sourced a hotel in the town and headed there first to unpack and freshen up.
After a quick turn around we jumped back into the car and drove straight to the Long Horse Saloon and walked in to see our bills still on the wall, we stopped for a beer and then went back to the hotel.
We had been seeing loads of people walking around in Pyjamas and we didn’t know what it was all about but we asked the bar tender in the bar/restaurant next to our hotel what it was all about and he said they have the Polar Express train leaving each hour and the parents and kids go on it and experience the trip like in the movie, so at 8:50 after some nice local brewed beers and a meal we walked over to the station to wait for the last train to come back in, the train arrived a little late but the kids onboard looked so happy and they all got off the train in there PJ’s and looked like they had just met Santa which of course they had.
We walked back to the hotel for a relatively early night having had a very good day, tomorrow we go to the Grand Canyon and then on to Sedona where we stay for 5 days and Christmas.