crazygrl

Hi. In late May I'm flying in to Las Vegas. I will be renting a car to drive to the south rim. However, I want to split the trip up because I'm traveling with older people that will be too tired to make a 5 hour drive straight through after flying all day from east coast. We'll get in to LV around 3 pm. We don't want to go the Zion route, have done that before. Not sure what city most people stop in. We have reservations at El Tovar following that initial night.
Many thanks for suggestions. It's only one night, but would like to be expiditious.

MmePerdu

A pitiful old person myself, I've driven easily from Flagstaff to Las Vegas, stopping only for gas in Kingman. You might stay in LV the first night, if they simply can't go on. Or give your ancient passengers more credit, there's no place worth stopping on that route and get yourselves to the nice cool South Rim. Or if you're unable to reserve another night at El Tovar, stay in Williams.

crazygrl

The problem is that one of them suffers from heart problems and gets greatly swollen legs when not walking around every hour for about 10 minutes. This would add a lot of time on to a 5 hour trip, after flying for about 8 hours. I'm really impressed that they are so spunky that they would even try this at all, so I'm not trying to be snarky about their elderliness.
I thought that if we would drive for a couple of hours, in addition to cutting down the first night's drive, that would also make the next day not be so terribly long with having to take breaks every so often to walk around.
So I was really hoping that there was a way to break up the trip.
But thanks anyway for your suggestion.

J62

There are plenty of chain hotels & place to eat in Kingman right near I-40. If you need to, that is where I would stop.

crazygrl

Hi J62, that's helpful. Kingman looked about right on the map, but wanted to check with an actual person! Do you think I should make reservations or is that not a popular stop since most people drive straight thru?
Thanks again.

tomfuller

If you or they don't want to go all the way to Kingman, consider the Hoover Dam Lodge. http://hooverdamlodge.com/
It is the former Hacienda. You do not have to go through the casino to get to the elevators. They did have a good buffet when it was the Hacienda. I don't know if it is still good.
If anyone is interested, there is a helicopter company that flies from above the parking lot over the Hoover dam.

MmePerdu

Apologies for snapping. Occasionally there are posts that seem to imply that older travelers are necessarily decrepit and, without further information, we don't know if that's the case in fact or just a younger person making annoying assumptions about their elders. Thanks for the clarification. Again, I apologize.

crazygrl

Wow. That sounds kind of cool! I'm going to look into that. I think a helicopter tour would be fun for them and for me too. Thanks again!

Retired1

MmePerdu...that is SO nice of you. Apology accepted! I didn't want to go into the whole health thing,but I probably should have addressed that right up front.
I don't want to kill these poor people trying to get them to their bucket list!
Again, nice of you, very classy.

emalloy

It's about an hour from the airport to Hoover Dam and about two hours to Kingman. You probably would not be on the road until after 4 if you get in at 3 so while the hours of daylight are a bit longer in May, it would be a tossup as to if you would want to go on to Kingman with perhaps a stop for a walk at the dam.

In any case, do the driving in daylight and enjoy the trip.