L.A. to Flagstaff

    On my couchsurfing profile I've listed as my mission Piet Hein's grook: "I'd like to know what this whole show is all about, before it's out".  The Griffith Observatory goes a long way to help with that mission. It is always mind-blowing to contemplate the enormity of the universe. We watched two planetarium shows, too: one on the presence of water throughout the universe, and the other on the origin and cause of the Northern Lights. 

    I also like another quote: “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine. There are a number of good travel quotes on this page: http://matadornetwork.com/bnt/50-most-inspiring-travel-quotes-of-all-time/ 

    Today was bright and clear for our drive to Flagstaff. We crossed the Mojave Desert, an area of picturesque hills: soft round ones, jagged ones like Needle Mountain, ones composed of nothing but enormous stacks of boulders with all the soil washed out from between them. Some boulders were rectangular, squared off; others were very round. In one area the sand seemed to be covered with cinder rocks, which is possible - volcanoes did occur here a very long time ago. 

    The earth tone hills against the wide, very blue sky invited a paintbrush, for which reason artists do flock to this part of the world, particularly Sedona. The hills force the air currents upward to compress humidity in the air into little cotton balls of white cloud in the blue above the hills...you can imagine the views. Far away hills sometimes looked like sci-fi movie sets of other planets. 

    There was a huge flat sandy plain with shrubs spaced out well distant from each other: creosote bushes, sage brush, and many other kinds, looking like peppercorn hair. We saw more alien spacecraft...Americans in this part of the country seem a little obsessed with them. 

    We couldn't find CouchSurfing hosts in Flagstaff, so we took a motel room which turned out to be one of the best $38 deals we've seen: king size bed, microwave, frig, a TV of course, breakfast, and a basketful of soap, shampoo, lotion, toothpaste, deodorant, throat lozenges, Stride gum, deodorant, and coupons for all the above in case you like them and want to buy more. Very smart marketing. 

    We saw snow in the mountain peaks near Flagstaff, but we were shocked to see snow beside the road and buildings on our way into town, this far south. Mind you, we crossed the Arizona Divide at 7355 feet just before we arrived here, so maybe it isn't so surprising. There are record warm temperatures east of here, but the forecast for us for tonight is five degrees below zero, so we've had to bring in our groceries overnight. 

    Here are some photos from the last few days. 

    Monday: we have had two days of motel room advance booking hell by trying to use Bookit.com - be warned, everyone! Each day, we booked a room at the Americas Best Value motels for a given price, were taken to a screen where we were assured that this was the price we could pay and we were asked for our credit card number; the next page was a booking confirmation for double the price!  It happened twice, the second time right in front of the manager in the hotel we were trying to book!  Bookit.com charges your credit card; the manager cancelled the booking, but it took an hour each time and lots of being left hanging on line to get Bookit.com to cancel their charge. 

    When this blog goes public, I hope they'll lose business for the way they treated Deborah over the phone. It confirmed my preference for just driving into town and looking for modest little Mom & Pop motels. The one we're in tonight is just as good as the chain one we were in last night, with a nicer looking room, and even cheaper. 

    The rest of the day was much better. We drove on up above 8000 feet onto the Colorado Plateau, and over to the Grand Canyon, which I both loved and hated. The Canyon is as spectacular as anyone has ever described it, and we enjoyed the geological museum there and the Imax movie at the National Geographic Centre (pretty exciting white water footage!) 

    We saw a herd of elk right beside the road, and a handful of deer.  The bus driver pointed out a condor, and I almost killed a rabbit at dusk on the way home - a good brake and swerve gave him time to think twice and make a fast u-turn out of the centre of my lane. 

    Getting to see the Grand Canyon wasn't an easy process.  One might envision driving to the edge of the canyon, parking, walking over and looking out, with just a few others who are there to do the same thing; but you would be wrong.  Over 300 million Americans want to see their Grand Canyon at least once in their lifetimes, and some are multiple, repeat offenders; and that doesn't even take the foreign visitors into account. Which means that after a paying a $25 park fee, one must park in a lot and take a (fortunately free) shuttle bus in either direction to get off and walk to viewing spots, lining up for, quite often, the third bus in a row (they come every fifteen minutes) to finally have room for you. On a cold day at the beginning of April, there were still thousands of people at the Canyon today; I can't imagine what it might be like in the summer months. But...we've seen the Grand Canyon! Strike one more item from the bucket list.

    I tried to limit myself to just a few photos, but that also wasn't easy.

Next post: Tucson, and sucked toward the vortex