Day 3: Albuquerque to the Grand Canyon and Flagstaff

It looked like it was going to rain. It did. Quite hard. Then it lightened up. Kind of. Eventually, I did in fact make it to the Grand Canyon, despite my musings to the contrary in the above video. As you’ll see, the bulk of today’s focus was indeed getting to the Grand Canyon.

Two quick things: today’s flickr gallery is here, yesterday’s is here, and you can view the entire Road Trip collection, as it continues to grow, here. The other thing is that you may notice the posts are coming progressively later-this is partly due to the fact that I’m moving further west and turning the clock back, and, I was pretty tired today, haha.

Leaving Albuquerque at 7:30 in the morning, I told myself I would need to make as few stops as possible in order to make it to the Grand Canyon by midday.

I did end up making a few stops, as my camera seemed to have a mind of its own, hitting the brakes and flipping on my turn signal without much work on my part…don’t know what I can really do about that beyond going with the flow .

I didn’t bother stopping for lunch, instead, I munched on this almond-cranberry-cashew nut trail mix that I’m sad to say I’m all out of at this point, but will probably end up getting again once I’m back in Houston and can find a Randalls. I daresay I may even have to make the stop before I pull into my driveway, ’cause it’s really that good.

Anyhow, after having my hopes briefly deflated by the onset of clouds and a brewing storm, I made it back to clear skies and headed up to the Grand Canyon. For those playing at home, this was the South Rim, which I arrived at by taking Highway 64 north from I-40. As you’d expect this time of year, it was quite busy. While I was there I recalled hearing some Japanese, a bunch of Korean, some French, some Spanish, and even a little Arabic.

The view itself is as breathtaking as you’d expect, and I tried my best to capture that sense with a few panoramic and really wide shots. According to one of the displays, visibility today was about 90 miles. I really can’t put all of the shots here since that’ll just take up too much room, but I really encourage you to check out the rest of the shots!

Naturally, when you’re walking around with a tripod, a backpack, and a big ole’ camera with a lens hood on it, there’s an interesting dynamic that plays out: those that come across you seem to give you an extra bit of respect, which is nice when you want to get a good shot. But on the flip side of that, it also means that when you come across people wanting their photo taken, some will jump at asking you for a shot. I think I took three or four shots for other people, which I was more than happy to do. I also managed to snap a few shots of myself.

Even though the area was chock full of visitors, taking a page from a friend of mine, just like a zoo, you get a sense that people are obviously there to enjoy the sights. It’s nothing at all like visiting a mall, where people are just hanging around killing time. So, even though I ended up seeking a quieter place to chill out, I must say that I enjoyed the atmosphere all the same.

A few memorable quotations I happened upon while around walking around the rim:

• “Somebody poisoned the water hole!” (repeated about five times in a two minute span. somebody was having fun, lol. his wife and kids weren’t as amused after the third time)
• “Baby it’s so fucking deep” (…) “I just want to throw shit down there, you know?”—a twenty-something year old woman to her man
• Written on one of the now-defunct displays: “we were skeletons. still virgins. Summer Tour 2K10 (put a map here or somethin!)”

As nice as the view was, I did eventually have to leave. I headed back south towards Flagstaff, pulled off the highway, found myself a KFC (and an Arby’s, Kbenn. I was thinking Arby’s, but then I wanted some chicken), checked into the hotel, recorded the last bit of video, took a two hour nap, woke up to write this post and curate the photos, and now it’s time for bed (edit: It’s 1:30 and the photos finally, finally finished uploading. Now I can publish this in a few minutes. I think I’ve overloaded the post with photos, but, whatever, it’s pretty-looking). Tomorrow I’m headed for Bakersfield where I’ll be staying with my friend Rafaela and her family for two nights. Hope to visit Disneyland down near Anaheim on one of those days! I can’t say for sure when the next update will be, but I going to try and continue to be daily, all else permitting.

At this point, I’m pretty tired once again, but continue to be amazed by all the wonderful things I’m getting a chance to see and experience on this trip. Occasionally while I’m on the road I take a moment to reflect upon the enormity of this journey. I’ve still got eleven days to go, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store. Thus far, the first three have been nothing short of awesome.