1,000 mile road trip

Well, I don't know if we went 1,000 miles or not, but I'm sure we were close. This last weekend me, my temporary flatmate Maria and her friend Daniel went on a tour of Arizona. Maria had wanted to go to the Grand Canyon before she left, and asked me if I had been. I hadn't, and as it turns out she had a friend from the department who hadn't been either, so the three of us decided to go.

Friday evening we left Tucson and drove to Flagstaff, where we stopped for the night. Maria had asked me if it would be colder in Flagstaff (it's been quite warm in Tucson), and I was pretty sure it would be, since Flagstaff is higher elevation and in the mountains. However, I think everyone was slightly dismayed to find old, crusty grey snow sitting abandoned in the carpark at the Days Inn.

Saturday morning we got up, partook of the continental breakfast, and headed west on I-40, turning at Williams to go to the Grand Canyon. We had read a brochure at the hotel about the IMAX theatre just before the Grand Canyon, which promised "eagle eye views" of the canyon. We decided to watch the movie, but didn't find a large number of eagle eye views. The history, though, was interesting.

The Grand Canyon was wonderful to see. Clark Griswold's reference to it as the biggest hole in the world was fairly accurate, as the canyon is roughly 10 miles wide. We took a brief walk along the canyon hiking trail, but found that the Grand Canyon is pretty much the same no matter where you view it from. We came to the conclusion that to fully appreciate the Grand Canyon, one must spend a week there, hiking or riding mules or rafting, or other outdoorsey things.

Upon leaving the Grand Canyon, we made our way to Cameron, Arizona (where nothing exists, really) and up 89 a few miles to 160 and the Navajo Indian Reservation. After a brief stop for food near Tuba City, we pressed on to Kayenta and then Monument Valley National Park, just across the Utah border. The monuments were sort of surreal, and at times I wondered if Mars would look the same. Either that or the set from the old Planet of the Apes movie, with Charleston Heston. Following our rather whirlwind tour of Monument Valley, we traipsed back across the Arizona border and made our way to Chenie, 100 miles or so away.

After our refreshing stay in the Best Western (where we got the "game rate" by enthusiastically agreeing to pretend we were, indeed, there to watch a high school basketball game or whatever it was), we headed to Canyon de Chelly (pronounced 'd'-SHAY), a national monument and ancient home to the Anasazi people. From a distance, we saw houses in the cliffs and some wonderful scenery. In fact, I'd venture to say that this, along with Monument Valley, was the best part of the whole trip. The Grand Canyon is... nice, but I think overhyped and overvisited. After departing from Chenie, we made our way back to I-40 and then to the Painted Desert/Petrified Forest National Park.

My camera broke at Canyon de Chelly. I'm getting some sort of error message, and it won't focus. I guess 3 years of Asia and humidity maybe has taken its toll. But I see that Best Buy has cameras on sale, so I guess it's time to replace it. It had been slowly eating batteries, though, and a new set just didn't last as long, so I suppose it had to happen sometime. So it goes.

The Painted Desert is probably quite nice when it's sunny. Unfortunately, it was pouring rain, so we didn't see much of the colors which are supposed to characterize the desert. We invented "drive-by tourism", where we pulled in to the turnouts, had a look, and went on. The Petrified Forest was quite interesting, as I had never seen big pieces of wood like that.

From there, we drove through to Globe, where we got to see more wonderful scenery, and then on to Tucson.

All in all, 2 days in the car, close to 1,000 miles, and quite a bit of Arizona toured.