The 35th annual Cowpunchers Rodeo was in town so we decided to go and see what it was all about. Unlike other rodeos we've been to, the contestants in this one must work or live on a local ranch. There were events for all ages. Here we were watching the under 12 steer riding event in which both boys and girls participated!

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We had seen this event at the rodeo in Calgary but it was sure fun to watch again. It is a team event where the horseback rider ropes the cow and the teammate runs out, gets milk in a small container and runs it back to the judge.

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Today found us traveling Route 66 to the Grand Canyon Caverns. How fun it was to see some of the old Burma Shave signs along the road!

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The Grand Canyon Caverns, located some 200-300 feet below the surface, are accessed by an exploration elevator which takes you 21 stories underground. They are the largest dry caverns in the United States. At a constant 57 degrees with only a 2 percent humidity year round, the Caverns have the ideal environment to preserve food and water. Because it is a dry cavern, there are no stalactites or stalagmites but we did see these snowballs which are selenite.

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On our tour of the Cavern, we got to see the largest, deepest, darkest, oldest, quietest motel room in the world! For a mere $800 you can rent this room for the night. There is electricity in the room as well as a TV for movies, a microwave and music. Wouldn't this be an incredible place to spend your wedding night!

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Leaving the Caverns we came upon this scene from "Cars". What is Herbie doing here?

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There are many small towns along Route 66 and we chose Seligman for our lunch spot. There were many restaurants to choose from - we chose Lilo's Westside and it was a winner! After lunch we checked out some of the shops that were packed with Route 66 "stuff".

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While our friends went shopping, Al and I decided to do some back country exploring. Our initial destination was Bill Williams Mountain but when we got to the turnoff we found it was closed because of fire danger. Not to be discouraged, we headed in another direction to...

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...White Horse Lake. It's a shame to see how low the lakes are because of the drought but there were still some fishermen trying to catch their trout limit. The campground here at the lake is beautiful and with paved spaces large enough for our rig but there is no way we'd travel that many miles down a gravel road with our motorhome!

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The wild iris are done so we decided to stop and collect some seeds and try to grow them at home.

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Coming back into civilization, we decided to stick with the surface roads. We came upon an area where we saw cars circling what we thought were Charolais cattle. Getting closer, we realized we were on the boundary of Bearizona, a drive-thru wild animal park and what we thought were cows were actually white buffalo!

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Back at camp Al had to get the handy California duster out to rid the jeep of all the red dust.

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