Williams is…

• The gateway to the Grand Canyon.. and everything about the town seems to focus on this, but if you look past the obvious.. there are so many beautiful natural spots to visit near the town
• A very small town with proud, friendly residents (even in a pandemic – ha)
• On the verge of crisis — limited water source and next to no rain for years: dry + dusty!

We have had a really nice stay in Williams – although as William joked, I’m not sure anyone ever visits as long as we have. Personally, have loved the chance to see the highlights offered here and have some recharge time.

Our weekly recap!

Monday — We visited Dogtown Lake with the Boys (I know I was just talking about a shortage of water.. but the Lake legitimately used to be MUCH wider). Rawls made a natural ring toss, the boys ran out a lot of energy and then spent their “art class” drawing scenes of the lake.

Pretty much each evening this is how we wrapped the day at this wonderful home – John and his dogs Mosie and Billy treated us well!

Tuesday – We really embraced the tourist side of Williams and did ALL the things, starting with Bearizona. We were uber skeptical of the local zoo visit as a good idea, especially hearing it was a partially drive-thru zoo… but it was SO well done. Each section of the drive-thru zoo contained a different animal, some where we were welcome to keep the windows down (deer, bison, burros) and some where we most definitely couldn’t (bears, more bears and the wolves). After the drive-thru, the walkable zoo area was nicely laid out. V. sweetly, Shepherd wanted to surprise his brother with a flute (randomly Rawls has been asking and we spotted one at the zoo). Today was a brotherly love day.

We followed by heading back in town.. and caved to taking the boys on the “zipline”. Check out the video for Rawls dancing everywhere at the zoo (the 80s music was on point), meeting a white peacock and the dreaded zipline.

We visited the Historic Brewing Co — Arizona wine is a thing and it pretty tasty! The restaurant group behind Historic Brewing has a couple other spots in Williams which have been our food highlights (cooking at home has been better though!)

We walked around the downtown and bought salt water taffy (did I mention Tuesday is for Tourists). Ending the day at restaurant, South Rimms. Totally fine (not great) dinner, but nice setting minus forgetting our jackets – brrrrrr.

Wednesday – A much simpler day 😉

We visiting Sycamore canyon — a remote and often inaccessible area and outside of the Grand Canyon, the most beautiful natural setting we’ve visited to date. With the beauty also came a v. treacherous set of trails! Quite a nerve wracking hike also (for E).

Thursday – Our last evening in town and we enjoyed hanging at the house for the afternoon and went to Station 66 Italian / Historic Brewing for our last meal here. Very much worth a visit!

and back we head to the Grand Canyon manana.