ROAD TRIP!!! DAY 1

We arrived in Flagstaff at 2 P.M, or so we thought, and called a taxi to take us to the airport. After being on the bus for over a day and neither of us getting much sleep we both looked a bit of a state. We didn’t smell so good either! After another expensive taxi ride we picked up the car. Only to be told that we were picking it up early so would get a charge if we didn’t return it by that time Monday. Completely confused I looked for a clock, only to find out we had entered a different time zone and gone back an hour. Thanks to the bus driver for the heads up ! The guy behind the desk told us our car was in bay nine. When we got to number nine we found a Dodge Challenger sitting there looking very cool. Both of us panicked. O.k. it was an awesome car but no way was it going to be able to cope with the kind of roads we would be going on. Ollie looked back and saw the only car in the parking lot that wasn’t vintage or a truck and decided that must be ours. Perfectly average and ordinary. The cheap option to be precise!

After picking up all the food we would need for the trip and a Burger King to get us on the way we set off for the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. We wanted to reach it by sunset. I was chief map reader and for once did a pretty good job. As we drove along I stared out at the changing landscape, from flat plains to forest, it was nothing we’d seen in America before, seen anywhere for that matter. We reached the Canyon just as the sun was thinking about giving up for the day. Jumping out the car we ran over to the nearest view point. I was freezing. The temperature had dropped by 30 degrees since Texas and it was coldest I’d felt since before the summer! Wrapped in my scarf and wooly hat I followed Ollie down the path. 

There in front of us was the Grand Canyon. Too awesome to comprehend. Too gigantic to understand. Too jaw dropping even to take in. I’m never lost for words, but for the first time on this trip I had nothing to say. It looks as if there is a giant painting stretched out in front of you. All dimensions become flat as the eye fails to process what it can see. The colours and lines in the rock are astounding and the many levels down towards the river basin seem unreal. As we stood there looking out, giant clouds began to creep through the canyon. A thick fog engulfed us as we watched the fantastic sight become hidden. Only Ollie and I could come to see the sunset at the Grand Canyon on a day when the weather is so bad! But it didn’t really matter. To see the way the fog moved between the rocks and down into the basin was something awesome in itself. Walking back to the car in almost pitch black, knowing such a wonder was only feet away was a great feeling.

We had wanted to visit the North Rim of the canyon but a ranger very kindly informed us that it was already under two feet of snow. Ollie and I were fast realising that visiting this part of the country at this time of year is not something most people do. Naively I never knew Arizona got so cold! Because of pictures I’d seen of all the exposed rock and rough land I had just assumed it was generally a hot place! How wrong could I have been?! As Ollie and I drove late into the night to the other side of the canyon looking for a place to sleep in the forest the temperature gauge in the car got lower and lower. Luckily neither of us can work out Fahrenheit so we didn’t actually have a clue how cold it was or at what point we might hit freezing. We found a lay by and decided to park up. There was no way we were putting up a tent in that cold! Wrapped up in sleeping bags we settled down to sleep.

5/11/11