Lost in Space
... and there is a lot of it!
I awake to great consternation on the news today. Although the temperatures have been 90-100F this week, apparently rain is expected at the weekend. This seems to be a big deal as it hasn’t rained in Arizona in June since 1914!
Having gone slightly off-piste yesterday, I will make a quick visit this morning to the main visitor centre at the Grand Canyon and the obligatory photos at Mather Point. The Grand Canyon is tourism on an industrial scale as you might imagine and even at 9 in the morning, the 4 or 5 huge car parks are pretty busy. I think a guerrilla action is required here - get in, get photos, get out.
And so I do, and then head to the desert view watchtower. This is an interesting place, built early last century as a tribute to the local tribes - mainly Hopi and Navajo. It also offers some views of the canyon where you can actually make out the Colorado River at the bottom.
The tower takes longer than expected, largely because they only let 25 people at a time go up, so you have to queue for a ticket and then wait for your time slot. Totally worth it though.
Now a sane person would head straight from here to Page. It has by now been well established that I am not this person and am taking a detour to see two stone pillars, the Elephant’s Feet. On the way, I start having flashbacks to my first road trip with Ethan in 2014. I am clearly on the same route out of the Grand Canyon and pass a place where we stopped briefly at a viewpoint and encountered the most disturbing sign I have ever seen at an “attraction”. The memory makes me chuckle.
I have inadvertently almost managed another Harry Potter sorting hat selfie. Maybe I should try to do it deliberately and make it my signature selfie..?
Interesting enough, although the graffiti is a bit disappointing - apart form that from Andrew and Marilyn who have put some effort in to carve this quite high up.
On my way back to he car, I stop to admire the wares of am Indian woman who is selling her jewellery from a stall by the elephants feet. She breaks the ice by telling me that some people refer to one of the pillars as the Donkey’s Foot and see the pillars as representing Republican’s and Democrats. Whilst I am still processing this incongruous suggestion, she is already into her sales pitch. To be fair she is very friendly and engaging and I have been thinking that I should buy something from one of the roadside markets rather than from the tourist centres.
And lets face it, who doesn’t need protection from evil spirits? And so, a few dollars lighter but now equipped with my juniper ghost beads, I hit the road again.
Now there is a slight problem here in that I am in the middle of nowhere and there is no phone signal, so navigation could be challenging. I travel many miles on roads with no indication of where they go, or indeed what road I am on.
I have a vague idea of which direction I want to head in, but there is a whole load of nothing out there. I am now protected of course, but evil spirits are currently less of a concern than dying of thirst or heat stroke in the desert. Then again, I have a decent amount of fuel and water in the boot and so determine to enjoy the drive. I may actually be on a genuine Road to Nowhere! Perhaps the Great Spirit is now with me.
Anyway, after some instinctive decisions at a few junctions with very few clues, I start to drift into territory which looks very familiar ( from the trip 11 years ago!) and suspect that I am approaching Page.
And so it turns out to be. One last stop at Horseshoe Bend (in madly oppressive heat)
Before continuing on to the hotel in readiness to the most rule heavy tour I have ever been on tomorrow. More of that later. Hopefully I will be on time as the time zones have been constantly flipping on me today - or to be strictly correct, the time zone is the same but most of Arizona does not observe daylight saving, but the Navajo Nation does. Not confusing at all!