The 4Runner's Last Ride - Wrapping It Up

Sunday, June 28, 2026

This turned out to be even shorter than I thought it would be.  I didn’t write any of it during the trip, but thought I’d write it up when we got home from memory, but that didn’t work out so well.  As soon as we got home we were right back in the thick of things with contractors and workmen here to do repairs, meetings with our realtor, and all the other things to do when selling your home and getting ready to move.  So here I am, three weeks later writing the blog, and my memory has faded a bit and I have probably forgotten some of the things I meant to say.

One thing I do remember was that it felt really good to get away.  We didn’t have to think about getting anything done, we didn’t get any phone calls and all we had to do was enjoy ourselves and we did do that.  The drive down to the Colorado River was interesting and while not a major achievement, we can now say we’ve done it and the 4Runner got one more off-road drive, albeit a pretty easy one.  Las Vegas is always fun so our little getaway did everything we wanted to do, and we came home ready to go into the final stretch (we hope) of our move.

As for future travel plans, right now we have none.  We reluctantly cancelled our Grand South America Cruise, which was very disappointing, but by May we could see that we had very little time to put any thought into preparing for the cruise let alone booking tours and other things.  We were really looking forward to circumnavigating South America and visiting Antarctica, but cancelling was the right thing to do and we are okay with that.

We don’t plan on making any future travel plans until we are moved and settled in at the Wisteria so this is probably the last blog post for a while, but in any case, we’ll see you on down the road.

Addendum Before Publishing:  It's amazing how fast things can change; the day after writing this we received an email from the Wisteria telling us that due to unforeseen circumstances the earliest the city of Los Angles would issue a certificate of occupancy would be mid October and they didn't expect to start moving people in until November or December.  

Wow, what a shock and disappointment!  It's not that we're that anxious to leave our home and California's Central Coast, it's just that we'd like to get it over with.  Oh well, there's nothing we can do about it, that's just the way it goes, but at least now we have a little breathing room to get ready for the move.  Anyway, who knows, maybe we will have time to travel a bit this fall and I'll be adding to the blog.

The 4Runner's Last Ride - Las Vegas

Sunday, June 7 to Friday, June 12, 2026

It takes just under three hours to get to Las Vegas from Seligman so we slept in before hitting the road.  We got on Interstate 40 and drove back west to Kingman where we got off on US93 toward Las Vegas.

We got to Las Vegas around two and checked into Harrah’s Las Vegas where we usually stay.  To our surprise, our room was ready, and an even bigger surprise was we had gotten a small suite on 61^st floor overlooking The Strip.  I think this may have been the best room we have ever had in Las Vegas.

I’m not going to go into any real detail on our stay in Las Vegas, but I’ll mention a few things.  First off, we had a nice view from our room of Caesar’s Palace and the old Mirage Hotel.  The Mirage was sold a few years ago to Hard Rock International and they have closed the hotel and casino and, although they are keeping the old Mirage Hotel tower, they are building their signature guitar shaped tower, and we had view of the construction.  Although it was hard to see any real progress as it is a massive project, it was interesting to watch.

The Guitar Tower of the Hard Rock hotel under construction.

We also had a view of Caesar's Palace and the Linq Hotel from our room

Also, the news has been full of stories about Las Vegas being in trouble because not as many people are visiting.  The hotels are offering more casino free play and resort credit to come there, but it still was quite busy, so I don’t think any hotels are going to go broke very soon.

We ate a lot of good food while we were here but stuck mostly to the places we had been to before.  We had another very good dinner at Ramsay’s Kitchen at Harrah’s, an excellent dinner at Chayo Mexican Kitchen on the Linq Promenade, a not as good as usual pizza (recommended by the waiter) at the Flour & Barley Brick Oven Pizza also on the Linq Promenade, a really good burger at Gordon Ramsay Burger at the Flamingo, and of course, a hot fudge sundae at Ghirardelli’s Ice Cream and Chocolate Shop on the Linq Promenade.

The gambling was mixed and while we had a good time and didn’t lose all of our gambling money, we were a long way from coming home with a profit.  All in all, we had a very good time in Las Vegas made even better by getting everything comped so it cost us almost nothing.

The lights of Caesar's Palace and the Linq.

The Forum Shops in the foreground and the Rio Hotel off in the distance.

The 4Runner's Last Ride - The Drive into the Canyon

Saturday, June 6, 2026

Today we are headed to Peach Springs where the road starts that will take us down to the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. We didn’t get an early start as we decided to have breakfast in the café before we left, but it was only an hour and half drive to Peach Springs so we had plenty of time.

We drove from Laughlin to Kingman, Arizona where we got on Interstate 40 for a few miles and then got off on old US66 for the drive to Peach Springs.  Peach Springs is on the Hualapai IndianReservation and is the headquarters for the tribe.  The tribe also operates the Grand Canyon Skywalk and a zipline that runs across a nearby canyon.

Our first stop in Peach Springs was the Hualapai Fish and Game Department to pick up a permit to drive the road down to the Colorado River as it is all on tribal land.  After getting our permit, we stopped at a nearby convenience store and picked up a few things for our lunch and then we were on our way.

The road down into the canyon is called Diamond Creek Road named because the road follows and is sometimes part of Diamond Creek.  It is recommended you have a 4-wheel drive high clearance vehicle to drive the road, but we never needed 4-wheel drive, but it did get pretty rough near the bottom and we were glad we had the high clearance.  There were also several crossings of Diamond Creek, but at this time of the year there was barely any water in it.  We did see one regular passenger car coming up the road as we drove down, but I don’t think I would do that; it would be too rough on the car.

After getting a permit and snacks, we started our drive through Peach Springs and down into the canyon.  It is a beautiful drive as you go deeper and deeper into the canyon.  At one point we were stopped by a tribal ranger to make sure we had a permit and he warned us that there were some vehicles coming up as the tribe runs rafting trips down the Colorado River.  Sure enough, a short time later, we saw a small convoy carrying a couple of rafts and guests up out of the canyon after their rafting trips.  They have rafting trips that both start and end here and also other companies end their trips here.

As we got near the end of the road we were surprised to see a big horn sheep and lamb crossing the road.  There were several others back across the road, but they wandered off in another direction.  We stopped to let them pass and watched them for a bit before moving on.

We finally reached the bottom and the Colorado River.  We did it, we had driven down to the Colorado River; the only place you can do that in the Grand Canyon.  There was no one there, but there were two large rafts, and we could see some people who were most likely guides waiting for their next guests relaxing up the river a bit.  It was a beautiful spot and since it was 108 degrees F, it was very tempting to cool off in the river, but we weren’t prepared for that.

We had planned to find a spot to eat our lunch along the river, but it was too hot for us and decided to eat in the car on the way back.  We wandered around a bit and took some pictures before starting our trip back to Peach Springs.  This was well worth the trip down here as it was a very beautiful and interesting drive.

There was a shaded picnic table, but it was too hot for us even in the shade to eat our lunch outside.

As we started back to Peach Springs, Val commemorated our last off road drive in the 4Runner.

There is a campground near the bottom of the canyon, but it is primitive.  There are pit toilets, but no water.  There is also a lodge in Peach Springs that looks pretty nice, but it got mixed reviews, so we decided to stay somewhere else.

It was late afternoon when we got back to Peach Springs and got back on US66 and headed east to the town of Seligman where we spent the night.  Seligman takes full advantage of being on old Route 66 and much of the town was themed around that.  Despite being off the beaten path, the town was full of people on a Saturday night.  We were staying at the old time looking Aztec Motel; it was a bit cramped, but very clean and we enjoyed our stay.  The café we chose for our dinner was less than memorable and we will not go back there, but it was full of people, so some must have been enjoying their dinner.

This was a fun and enjoyable day.  We did something unique by driving to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, we drove through some beautiful country and stayed in a town that had its roots back in the heyday of Route 66.  Tomorrow we’ll be somewhere totally different; the crowds and bright lights of Las Vegas.

The 4Runner's Last Ride - The Drive to Arizona

Thursday June 4^th and Friday June 5^th, 2026

As with most of our trips to the Southwest, this trip started out with a short drive to Tehachapi and dinner at the Red House BBQ. 

The next day we drove to Laughlin, Nevada and Harrah’s Resort and Casino where we spent the night.  We had an excellent Mexican dinner at Guy Fieris El Burro Borracho.  I am not a big fan of guacamole because (to me) it doesn’t have much flavor, but for an appetizer we got Stone Guacamole and chips and that guacamole was so good it changed my mind as it was delicious.  We spent the rest of the evening gambling enough to get our room and food comped, and then called it a night; tomorrow we are driving to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

The 4Runner's Last Ride - Time to Get Away

Wednesday, June 3, 2026

This year has been very busy for us, and we haven’t had much time for travel.  Val had her hip replacement in January, and we celebrated her recovery with a short trip to Lake Tahoe in March, but other than that we have been immersed in downsizing, getting the house ready for sale, meetings, and medical and cognitive tests for The Wisteria, our future home.  It seemed like something was going on every week and we just didn’t have any time to relax.

After a few months of this we were feeling pretty stressed and decided we had to find time to get away.  We looked at our calendar and found an empty ten-day block of time in June and started planning.  We wanted to go to Las Vegas which didn’t require too much planning, but Val had read about a place in the Grand Canyon where you can drive down to the Colorado River.  We added that to our plans and we had a ten-day mini-road trip to look forward to.

The reason I called this the “4Runner’s Last Ride” is because we are only taking one car with us to The Wisteria, and the 4Runner isn’t the car we’re keeping so sometime before we move, we’ll be selling the 4Runner.  That’s very sad for us as it means the end of our off-road adventures, but it just didn’t make sense to keep two cars and have one sit idle except for a few outings every year.

The blog for this trip will be very short as we aren’t covering much new ground, but since it’s probably the only trip we’ll be taking for the rest of the year and there is a unique element to this trip, I wanted to post something, so here it is.