We then had some down time, got lunch from a food truck in front of El Tovar, explored the South Rim from our hotel some more, got another less-than-good dinner at Maswik Lodge, and drove over to Yavapai Point for sunset. It’s the only hotel on our trip that had removed its coffee machines. We returned to our car and we stopped by the Visitor Center for coffee – there’s currently no coffee in the El Tovar rooms because of the virus. It’s a little steep in places, but nothing too scary, and my kids handled it just fine – even in shoes with little traction. Heading down South Kaibab Trail Nearing Ooh Aah Point Our turn around spot The total elevation loss to Ooh Aah Point is 700 feet. The trail goes all the way into the canyon, but the popular place for families to turn around is Ooh Aah Point, a little less than one mile down. Our second day we had breakfast in our room (we brought bread and fruit with us) and then drove over to the South Kaibab Trailhead, or as close to it as we could get – parking wasn’t allowed at the trailhead, so we parked on the street roughly 3/10 of a mile away and walked along the canyon rim to the start of the hike. Sunset at the Grand Canyon Near Grand Canyon Village and El Tovar Hotel We had a mediocre dinner at the only place that seemed to be open, the Maswik Food Court a mile from the hotel, and then walked around more at sunset. After we arrived we checked in and then walked around the view points near the hotel. The lobby at El TovarĪs with everywhere on the road trip, we didn’t do a lot of advance planning. Kind of amazing to be able to book at the last minute given its usual popularity. It had been closed for three months for COVID-19 and had only reopened three days earlier. In-n-Out was open, but most tables were blocked offĮl Tovar is one of the iconic National Park lodges. We left our house at 7am and got to our hotel, El Tovar on the South Rim, at 4:30pm, stopping for half an hour along the way for gas and for lunch at In-n-Out Burger in Kingman, Arizona. I had only visited once, when I was young, and my kids had never been. Relaxing in Capitol Reef National Park after 8 hours of driving The Grand Canyon, Arizona Day Twelve: Zion NP to Ventura, 8 hours.Day Eleven: Capitol Reef to Zion NP, via Bryce Canyon, 6 hours.Day Nine: Colorado Springs to Capitol Reef NP (UT), 8 hours.Day Five: Telluride to Colorado Springs, 6 hours.Day Three: Grand Canyon to Telluride (CO), 7 hours.Day One: Ventura to the Grand Canyon (AZ), 9 hours.But the thought of driving straight there in 18 hours or so didn’t interest me – where’s the fun in that? So we planned 12 days / 11 nights total, with back-to-back driving days only once. When we were sketching out our road trip, the overall goal was to get to Colorado Springs to see family. In our masks in Telluride A Southwest Road Trip Planner Colorado Springs, Grand Junction (CO) and the National Parks in Utah were the worst – a lot of the time we were the only people wearing face masks. The Grand Canyon was second best, with 1/3 to 1/2 of people in stores and in the food hall wearing masks. Telluride, Colorado was the best – virtually everyone wore a mask, even walking around town, and the restaurants and stores were strict about it. Come on people – it’s not hard to wear a mask and it saves lives.
But I was surprised how many people in stores and restaurants (when not eating/drinking) weren’t in masks. This is understandable if you’re hiking in a National Park, and we didn’t wear ours when we were in uncrowded natural environments.
Tourists everywhere were far less likely to wear masks.
We probably should have walked out, but we were hungry and there weren’t a lot of options. Maybe feeling safer due to plexiglass, workers at two gas stations and one hotel didn’t have masks, and our server at one restaurant was maskless.
Virtually all gas station, restaurant and front desk employees were wearing face masks, but there were exceptions. There were also restrooms available in the quick bite restaurants we stopped at. Every gas station we wanted to stop at was open, and they all had open restrooms. For the most part this felt like a normal trip, but with fewer people at our destinations. I received a lot of questions on social media about our trip, mostly about restrooms and masks. On the road – in Utah Traveling During the COVID-19 Pandemic We were in the car roughly 44 hours, saw six states, including short drives through New Mexico and Nevada, and visited four National Parks. So I took my 10-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son on by far the longest road trip we’ve ever done – 2,550 miles from the beach in California to Colorado Springs via Arizona and back via Utah. With summer here, though, it was time to get out of the house – in a safe way. And we cancelled a lot of travel plans in the process, including trips to Italy, Turkey, Germany and Greece. Like most of the world, we locked down for almost three months due to COVID-19.
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