We slept in a bit (7am!) & decided our plan for the day. We were still pretty tired from the previous day's ride, & were also thinking of taking in the semi's of the world cup.. España vs. Deutchland. But we had to get Tom's bolt for his rack so he could take his panniers home. The only hope for a bolt was the general store in Tusyan. We rode into town the back way, down Rowe Well road (dirt). Then we stopped for breakfast at Wendy's.. fair but reasonably fast. Next we hit all the stores.. only one general store, & no bolt. Next door to it was an rv park. I know they have to have a lot of maintenance & repairs, so we headed over there & i went inside to ask if they had a bolt in some junk box somewhere. They referred us to Renaldo, the maintenance guy, who was very helpful. We not only got the right size bolt, but some spacers & a nylon lock nut. Tom generously gave the guy $9, which was a lot for $1 worth of bolts.. but we didn't have a lot of places to shop. Rebolted, we headed back to Maswik, where we could catch the World Cup in the pizza/beer bar.
We got there just in time.. after the game started, there would be standing room only. Lots of Europeans go to the grand canyon.. Asians, too. They say there are more visitors from Tokyo to the GC than from Phoenix..
Anyway, it was packed.. seemed like mostly a Germany biased crowd. I asked a young couple behind us to snap the above pic, then asked who they were for, España or Deutchland. 'Deutchland', was the young woman's immediate reply. Every time the German goalie made a stop, the place burst into polite applause. Tom thought it would be fun to get beat up by a mob of angry Germans, so decided to root for Spain. We didn't see or hear any overt Spanish fans in the room. But when the goal was scored late in the second half, the room burst into cheers.. there were a lot of Spanish fans there! Tom's enthusiasm for Spain diminished somewhat, but Germany couldn't overcome their 1 goal deficit, & as you know, Spain went on to win the World Cup. It was fun watching the game with fans who were enthusiastic about the outcome. Some even had little flags painted on their cheeks.
After the game, we decided we had time for another ride to the west. Tom wanted to go along the railroad tracks for a bit, so we headed back down Rowe Well road, then into the NF & followed the Grand Canyon railway tracks for a few miles. Then we came back down the old 'brush' road, & returned to the lodge. I didn't take any video, & only stopped for this pic of the lodge..
Rustic accomodations at their finest! The ride was only 2-3 hrs, but one nice thing about summer is the longer days. We cleaned up after the ride & walked over to the famous El Tovar hotel to check out the bar.. it had a better view of the canyon than the one inside of the main Bright Angel lodge. We had a couple of drinks, split an appetizer, then returned to the room to get updated on where Lebron would go, and an early retirement.
End of Day 3
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