Blog

Flagstaff

After our amazing day at the canyon on the 1st, we spent the 2nd a bit slower. We packed up the tent and scratched our head on what to do next. Had a bit of fun by hiring a pair of Banana Bikes from the campground office. Their Banana Bikes are sort of the BMX version of a recumbent bike; fixed gearing, pedals out the front, wheels in a tricycle formation, lean your body left or right to steer. Very fun to scoot about in, and with the fixed gearing they're very good leg exercise too! While scooting around I saw a herd of squirrels feeding under a bird feeder so I went back with my camera and got a few (50+) photos of them. There was 5 of them, all busy nibbling away on the bird seed, then the wind would blow up their tails and they'd all simultaneously sprint off in different directions towards the same tree, then they'd all bound a few feet up the tree and hang there trying to see what had spooked them. Just like cats do!

Shutter speed: 1/4000th of...

Grand Canyon!

What visit to Arizona would be complete without visiting the Grand Canyon? So that's what we set off to do on the 1st. Woke up, made a quick phone call (no problems this time luckily for the pay phone) and headed off on the Interstates for the Grand Canyon. Fairly uneventful hour and a half drive (Flagstaff and Grand Canyon are right next to each other on the map). Paid the $25 entry fee and in we went. Parked, walked through the forest and emerged on the rim walkway, and here was the view:

Of course it's nearly impossible to capture the scale of the place; heck it's nearly impossible to comprehend it in person! Here are some more shots…

 

So while you can stand at the edge and peer in, it's pretty hard to comprehend the 4000 ft drop or the 13 mile width. So we drove back down the road a bit and hopped into one of these:

Out of Africa Zoo

While browsing the brochures at KOA Ange came across one for a special Africa themed zoo not too far from us. So on the 30th we headed south on the Interstate system (actually very good here, almost a pleasure to drive) for an hour and a bit and soon arrived at the zoo. Actually ended up at the county court, but soon fixed that. Descended quite a few thousand feet off the Flagstaff plateau and we were quite definitely into desert here.

View from the top of the plateau, looking out over the Coconino National Forest towards southern Arizona.

Interesting zoo. The main attraction for Angela was the Tiger Splash event they run, where the keeps are in with the tigers as they get them to jump into pools and chase after pool toys! Yes the humans were in with the tigers, plural on the tigers too. How much interaction was there?

That much! I gather having your scalp licked by a tiger hurts; if there tong...

Mexican Hat to Flagstaff

So we'd ended up in Mexican Hat, Utah by accident, which meant today's main goal was to get back to Arizona where we were supposed to be headed. So we dug out our maps and colouring pencils and set about making a plan. The proprietor of the motel saw us and got chatting; she was quite jealous and wanted to be able to travel again. She suggested a few places we could try along the way that we might find interesting.

As soon as we stepped outside I had one of those moments; we'd arrived in the middle of the night to a tiny little backwater town in deepest darkest southern Utah, with little idea what was actually here. So when I stepped out and found myself surrounded by red cliffs and brilliant blue skies it was quite something. Just to add to the surrealism, something very black, very fast and very low screamed overhead in a giant lazy circle, no doubt off to some top secret military installation! Not the first time we've had flyovers either; seems to be something that happe...

Durango to Mexican Hat

Plan for the 28th was to head out of Colorado and into Arizona. So that's pretty much what we did. Left Durango and headed for Arizona. Stopped at a small trading post that sold Indian goods and had a good look there. Lots of interesting rocks, I bought some magnetic "hematite" which is pretty fun, though reading more on the net I'm not convinced what I got is really hematite as true hematite is only very faintly magnetic, but these stones are incredibly strong magnets. But for 25c each I'm not complaining; they're fun to play with.

Shortly after we crossed into New Mexico again, and then very shortly afterwards into Arizona. This part of the States is called Four Corners because it is the only part of the States where four different states meet at a common point. There's a nice little monument here so we rolled up and paid the $6 to get in and had a look around. We're in Navajo Nation here which is the largest of the Indian reservations, so surrounding the actual monument ...