As recounted a few times now, going home via the US was my idea and derived from the idea of catching the QM2 across the Atlantic. Sasha had eagerly picked the idea up, and we ran with it. The very top of Sasha's list for things to do in the US - visit the Grand Canyon. Initially I didn't know if visiting the Canyon would be feasible with everything else we wanted to do, but Sasha was clear - visiting the Grand Canyon was non-negotiable. Therefore a lot of what we did in the US, and the order we did things, hinged around the Grand Canyon. The plan all fell into place though - and thanks to our German friends Sandra & Christian having spent a month the year previous travelling across the US, they'd given us a pretty good idea of how to the Grand Canyon but also alerted us to other things nearby that would be worth doing. Namely these were Horseshoe Bend, and Antelope Canyon, and it was from them that we learned the nearest major town was Flagstaff, which was the place we zeroed in on as being our base for our Grand Canyon time. In terms of all the other things we were doing in the US, the Grand Canyon part of the visit was going to be very different to anything else!
This one is simple - see the last post on how we travelled to Flagstaff!
Unlike Europe, we discovered that in the US Airbnb was often cheaper than staying in hotels or hostels. For Flagstaff, we'd booked a room in an Airbnb house a short walk from the Amtrak train station. We had noticed that on the description the person had put "Cannabis use present" in the description - not that we do that, but we don't begrudge anyone who does and we figured it was probably just noted so if the person happened to be indulging in it, no one would be surprised.
Our train had been abut 30 minutes late, so we got to the accommodation about 30-45mins later than we had anticipated but we'd kept the Airbnb host advised of whats going on. We knew we'd found the house when we spotted someone sitting on a chair on the porch outside the door of the house, he was slightly younger than us and he welcomed us in. He said he'd been sitting outside to try and stay awake until we arrived! He showed us to our room - fairly spacious and tidy, and he showed us that the light in the wardrobe worked by screwing the lightbulb in as he hadn't been able to fix the light switch yet. He then showed us around the rest of the house - he apologised for the unwashed dishes in the sink, and also apologised that the bathroom wasn't super spic and span "but it's pretty clean for a stoner!". Generally - the house was a bit messy, some would call it dirty but that dirtiness did not cross the line into unsanitary. Turns out that Airbnb description said "Heavy cannabis use present" and its fair to say, the description was not a lie! Having said that, the Airbnb owner was very friendly, hospitable and did not seem to light up when we were around in any "communal" spaces so we weren't 'forcibly' subjected to it. It was a bit of a laugh really but overall, it proved to be a good place to stay. |
So the main reason we were in Flagstaff for was to go to the Grand Canyon, but Flagstaff is not at the Grand Canyon. The Canyon is about an hour and a half to the North, and we wanted to do some other things such as visit Antelope Canyon and Horseshoe Bend. The most practical way - if not the only way - of doing these was to hire a car. So our first morning in Flagstaff, we walked to the rental car place and picked up our car. It was an automatic, had cruise control and was a Toyota so had the indicator & window wipers on the "proper" side unlike the Citroen that we'd had in Scotland - but being the US, it was driven from the left side of the car and not the right. This was the first car I'd ever driven with cruise control, and it took me a while to get the hang of setting it up but by and large it was useful for the long straight stretches. I didn't trust it for the corners and there were times where it was better just to manually control the speed of the car.
Driving on the whole was uneventful, though I didn't like driving back along one road when it got dark as the road was a bit narrow, no-one seemed to stick to the speed limits and the foliage came right up against the sides of the road meaning if some animal jumped out of it there would be little to no warning. The wider roads were fine for diving on at night though. We had a tanker truck overtake us one day, then badly tailgate a car further in front - it got to the point where I told Sasha to start filming the truck in front because he was badly trying to overtake the car, and the truck was swerving so much that it seriously looked like the tanker trailers might flip on their sides! We backed right off of course but after a bit the swerving stopped and the driver just drove normally and didn't attempt to overtake. It really looked like something out of a movie! The entire time we were in the car, the only music stations there seemed to be were Country and Western - so for lack of anything else, we listened to these the entire time. We soon discovered all songs were based around at least one of 5 themes - Love, Heartbreak, Jesus, Drinking, or Drugs. Most of the time, the songs weaved two or more of these concepts together - "I was drinking because I had my heart broken, then I did drugs and then I found Jesus and now I'm in love" type thing. I didn't know any of the songs aside from the occasional Taylor Swift tune, but "Better Hide the Wine" and "I love this Bar" have since made it to our combined playlist!
We only had to fill up with fuel twice - once in Page, and once in Flagstaff when returning the car. Filling up with fuel in the US was interesting - you had to pre-pay, and they wanted to swipe your card that you were paying with as they didn't do chip or paywave. Given I was wanting to fill the tank each time, pre-paying was a bit difficult as I had to nominate an amount I wanted hoping it would be enough or not too much. The first time it was too much - I couldn't put all the fuel I'd already paid for in the tank, so went back inside to see whether I could be refunded the difference. They were a bit perplexed, but explained that what I didn't use was automatically refunded to the card and they gave me a reciept to show as much. The second and last time, I handed over my Revolut card to pay with and the guy kept having trouble with it - until I realised he kept swiping it and I had swipe turned off, so I handed over another card. While this was going on, a large guy waiting behind me has a knowing look on his face and says to me "You from New Jersey?". To which I reply "No, New Zealand". "Oh" he said with an immediate look of surprise at being wrong, and then a look of confusion - I'm not sure he knew where New Zealand was, or whether it was a country or a US State!
Having picked up the car on our first full day, we headed straight to Grand Canyon Village via the Little Colorado River Navajo Tribal Park, where we got a look down into a deep river valley which gave us a sense of what the Canyon might be like. Upon paying for our Grand Canyon visitors pass (valid for a few days) we started driving along the various viewing spots, getting a good look at the Canyon from various viewing angles. First impressions - the Canyon is not only huge, its also deep, and its lots of different colours!
So imagine our surprise, and luck when we come out of the Visitor Centre, head to the nearest viewing railing and see a California Condor perched on a nearby rock, not far from a group of people.
Another thing Sasha wanted to do while we were in the area was go visit the Antelope Canyon - which you may never have heard of, but when you see photos you'll recognise it. Basically there is Upper Antelope Canyon and Lower Antelope Canyon (and technically a few others as well) - they are run by different groups, Upper Antelope Canyon is considered the more popular and is the one where they throw the dust up in the air to sparkle in the shafts of sunlight. We opted for Lower Antelope Canyon - lesser to no chance of sunlight shafts, definitely no dust throwing but on the whole the opinion was its less crowded and better for photography. Lower Antelope Canyon is near the town of Page, a roughly 2.5hr drive from Flagstaff, and is situated almost right next to the state border with Utah. Utah had a different timezone than Arizona, and as we got close to Lower Antelope Canyon our phones jumped to a celltower in Utah and changed the time, leading to a small panic as to whether we were late or not!
After checking in (you had to book ahead to guarantee getting in - otherwise you go into a waiting queue and enter on a space-available basis, which since it was peak season didn't look likely!), we had lunch from supplies, awaited our allotted timeslot and then entered the Canyon. You go in groups, and the canyon is narrow enough that you have to file through single-file. What this means is that because of all the twists and turns, you only get a few seconds of opportunity where someone is out of the frame to take your photo before you have to move along, or someone enters the frame. But this worked fine - the only real problem was every next view looked better than the last! And every so often, the rocks looked like something - an eagle, a monkey, a whale, or even a lady.
On the whole now, and after that frustration has long melted away, I really did enjoy the trip in the Canyon - its a narrow cleft between rocks worn into groove lines by the dust being swept along by rushing water. Apparently flash floods happen in the Canyons, and in winter the Canyon is deep in water. In the 90's some people died in the Canyon during a flash flood, but now there are warning systems in place to evacuate the Canyon and cancel tours ahead of water entering it. Interestingly enough, we were one of the last groups to travel through the Canyon that day - because about an hour later a rainstorm hit, and we heard on the radio the Canyon had been closed due to the risk of flash-flooding. Just as well we didn't book tickets for later that afternoon - we would have missed out on being able to go to the Canyon entirely!
After Lower Antelope Canyon, on our way back to the Grand Canyon we went via Horseshoe Bend. We knew of Horseshoe Bend from a TV show we'd been watching called Westworld, and it is a remarkable view of the river that flows into the Grand Canyon. A couple of things about Horseshoe Bend stick out in the memory - one was how exceedingly hot it was there, over 40 degrees for sure; that the signs in the carpark said that taking water for the walk to the lookout was compulsory; the river was a blue-green colour at this point, but later down in the Grand Canyon it was brown; there was a small viewing area with a barrier, but then lots of area either side with no barrier and a long way down if you fell; and the girl making the walk to the viewpoint in only a bikini.
Everyone knows about Walmart if just by name alone, but so far on our travels in the US we had not yet come across one. Much like The Warehouse, they don't lurk in the city centres - they are out in suburbia, and we hadn't been into any appropriate suburbia where they might be. Flagstaff though was not a big place, but it had a big Walmart - which was easy for us to get to. Since Sasha's shoes were not only very slippery but starting to fall apart, and I needed a screwdriver set that could be used to open up my Mobile phone (which was having a lot of issues, particularly with the battery), Walmart seemed like the appropriate place.
So Walmart is basically a huge The Warehouse, mixed with Kmart, and mixed with a Supermarket - basically anything and everything you could need, Walmart will have it. We actually visited Walmart a grand total of 3 times in the same day - once for a look, the second time because we thought we might be able to find phone protective screen covers cheaper elsewhere but turns out they were cheapest at Walmart, and I forget why we needed to go back a 3rd time! A couple of observations - the "Mexican Foods" section was called "Hispanic Foods" instead but had your old El Paso kits and everything else; some of the food items for sale were available in jumbo-sized packets; we found rolls of "Duck Tape" next to the more genuine "Duct Tape"; and while the clothing and shoes were comparable with Kmart or The Warehouse quality, sometimes the prices weren't as cheap. I found my screwdriver set for the phone, and we both managed to get new much-needed (glass, not our preferred plastic) phone screen protectors; I ended up with a cheap "America" t-shirt for $3; we also got lunch supplies from the supermarket section, but Sasha did not find any good or cheap shoes. It seemed a waste of money to spend a lot more on shoes which were only really needed for a few more weeks until Sasha could get her old shoes back - so we didn't bother with them. Lastly - we did not see any "People of Walmart" people in the store during any of our 3 visits!
On our last day in Arizona, we had some time to kill in the afternoon before we needed to return the car. Not enough time to drive back to the Grand Canyon, but too much time to spend in Flagstaff. So we drove out towards Sedona, a nearby town which was reputed to be rather pretty and scenic. We found a spot near the river and had our picnic lunch, spent a little time at various spots taking photos near the town, before heading back to Flagstaff. Even though Sedona is only about 45mins drive from Flagstaff, the landscape changes a lot - Flagstaff is flat, and largely so is the rest of the landscape between there and the Grand Canyon, or it has low rolling hills. Sedona has craggy hills and peaks, in that stereotypical "Wild West" style - of the kind you might see in a Roadrunner cartoon. The town itself is not too remarkable, but the landscape around it certainly is!
Since Sasha had been to Arizona before, one of the thing she was looking forward to seeing again was cactus in the wild, and in particular the stereotypical looking variety out of movies or cartoons. They'd been all over the show when she'd done her last trip, and so when our train entered Arizona en route to Flagstaff she began keeping a look out for them. Same the next day during our drive to the Grand Canyon, and again the next day when going to Antelope Canyon, and even on the last day where we went to Sedona. We didn't see any of this particular kind of cactus at all - in fact we didn't even see a lot of cacti at all, just sometimes a small ground-dwelling variety (as in the picture from Sedona above) rather than the tall, upright kind of cactus Sasha was looking out for. It turns out they only live in Southern Arizona, like Phoenix where Sasha had been previously - not Northern Arizona where we'd been!
By and large, our food and drink was either picnics or from supplies. Breakfast was always from supplies, our lunch the first day was had at the cafe at Grand Canyon Village; on the 2nd day we had it from supplies awaiting going into Antelope Canyon, and on the 3rd day it was the picnic at the river by Sonoma. For dinner, the first night we had Subway because it was the only food place we could find in town that was open after we got back from the Canyon (turns out Fast Food Row was further out of town); the 2nd night we had croissants filled with meat and cheese that we assembled from things we'd bought at the supermarket, as we watched the thunderstorm over the Grand Canyon; but the last night was our "blow-out" night where after dropping the car off, we went to the Lumberyard Brewing Co's restaurant which was across the road from the Amtrak Station, where we'd checked in and dropped our bags off prior (as we were departing by train). We didn't go too hard on the food and drink here, but we did have a nice time sitting outside sampling their craft beer range, and their food - with the occasional BNSF freight train passing by, roughly one every 30 minutes but then it became two passing each other at speed past the station every 30 minutes. We never cooked or assembled food in the Kitchen at our Airbnb - we never really had the time to, though the pile of dishes might have been a factor otherwise. So far, the beers at the Lumberyard were some of the best I'd sampled in the US (there had been a tasty few tried in Toronto CA though).
Summing Up
The Grand Canyon is huge, and very impressive. I expected it to be more red/orange and just that colour really - not the various hues of brown, orange, red, purple, grey and even possibly blue. Often you get to one of these world-notable tourist attraction places and think "Yeah its cool but I'm not sure it matches up to the hype" - but the Grand Canyon definitely matches the hype. Antelope Canyon is becoming much more known (probably thanks to social media such as Instagram), and it too is remarkable. When we went to Antelope Canyon & Page I was intent on driving across the nearby border into Utah in order to tick off another state - but after Antelope Canyon I wasn't in the mood for a 30min detour and we were getting time-pressed to fit in Horseshoe Bend and then Grand Canyon in time for sunset. Horseshoe Bend was an impressive sight too, and probably the hottest I recall feeling all trip. On another note, the main road of Flagstaff is on Route 66 - so I can claim to have driven on the infamous Route 66!
Visiting the Grand Canyon was Sasha's "absolute must" thing for our visit to the US. I'm glad we went - this section of the trip was one of the biggest highlights of our time in America, so a massive thanks to my partner-in-crime on insisting we go - it was amazing!