Monday, April 09, 2007
SPRING BREAK - PART 3
where was i? ah, yes, leaving colorado for FOUR CORNERS.we loaded up the car with our bags, new thrift store finds and the SNACK AND ACTIVITY BAG (best part of the trip! it included MAD LIBS, nutella and organic juice boxes) and said goodbye to colorado. my grandma lives only about 40 miles from Four Corners, but all of the times we had visited her, we had never gone there. and now i know why.
i've never been so dissapointed . . . it was basically this parking lot where you have to pay 3 dollars A PERSON to go in and park. stand on this little seal between all the flags of the four states that come together at that spot . . . and then shop for souveniers in the 40 or so stalls that are set up around the perimeter.
my only consolation is that i hope the fees we paid went to upkeep of the land and preservation of wildlife or something . . .
anyway, here are deborah and i being so very excited about standing in 4 (well 2 each) states at once:
close-up:
we stayed for just a few minutes . . . maybe 5.
we got there pretty early in the morning, so there weren't many stalls open (maybe 5), and we didn't want to shop anyway. so we took off for the grand canyon. deborah sleeping, i listening to the ipod, us eating some snacks and doing some mab libs.
northern arizona:
one thing we noticed about this part of america is that there are lots of trailer parks and just trailer homes in general. there will be a huge stretch of desert, a trailer home, some tumbleweeds and then another huge stretch of desert. and some cows. a dry creek bed. some hardcore trees. another trailer.
if i lived basically on the edge of the grand canyon, i would want to build something more substantial (and with huge picture windows) than a trailer home. that's all i am saying.
the big hole in the ground that pictures just can't do justice to:
so, we entered the at East entrance by this watchtower you could climb and go out on the roof to see the view better. here we are sitting in these crazy chairs that looked to be made out of some kind of hide . . . ew:
after ooing and aahhing from the watchtower, we drove further west through the park along the rim of the canyon to the grand view trail (i think that's what it was called). we decided to hike down into the canyon and have a picnick lunch.
here we are hiking down the trail:
(yes, i wear that purple hoodie a lot).
at every switch back, the canyon offered us another breathtaking angle of the canyon.
at one point, we found a rock that jutted out over the canyon under a tree. we climbed out onto the rock to have our picnick.
bananas and nutella on tortillas. apples. organic juice boxes. we didn't eat the boxes, we drank the juice out of them, silly.
while we were eating this man and woman passed us and the woman said, "looks like y'all found the perfect place to eat lunch!"
yep. we did.
after hanging out on our rock for a bit, we decided to hike back up and start the drive to tucson.
but we forgot about the elevation. i am from the northwest. there is a LOT of oxygen there. in the grand canyon . . . there is not so much. so, we hiked the 1/4 to 1/8 of a mile back up out of the canyon huffing and wheezing for oxygen. the hike wasn't hard at all. but our lungs were screaming! i think my lungs hurt for about 1/2 hour after our trek.
deborah pausing for air:
we drove along the rim for awhile longer until we left the canyon park at the South Entrance and headed toward flagstaff, phoenix and then tucson.
We watched the scenery change from the gnarly trees around the canyon, to the tall firs and evergreens near flagstaff, to the cacti and palm trees around phoenix (below) and the crazy abundant saguaro cacti that surround tucson.
the drive from phoenix to tucson is a two lane highway and it is totally STRAIGHT. it is sort of reminiscient of the drive between salem and eugene here in oregon. when done at night surrounded by long haul trucks, it can be a challenge. but we were guided by a beautiufl sunset, so the trip wasn't so bad.
by the time we got to tucson it was dark. and it had started raining these fat heavy drops of rain (the first rain we had really seen the whole trip - up till then it had been nice and warm and sunny) with flashes of lightning on the horizon. what a fun way to enter tucson!
we called up our friend jake and gave us directions to his place. where we promptly dumped our stuff and headed downtown to this restaraunt called "the grill" for dinner. i had the portabella mushroom burger. it was perfect. after walking downtown a bit in the smattering rain . . . we headed back to jake's place and crashed on the floor.
alltogether it was quite a fulfilling day for the road trip.
say it don't spray it 2:41 PM
1 i heard that
