Day Ten

I'm surprised I'm still awake right now. After crashing last night around 11:30 or so, we got up at 4:30 today to see the sunrise over the Grand Canyon. Now, without a doubt in my mind, it was worth it, but I'm just honestly surprised I'm still coherent and, weirdly, not really tired right now.

So yeah, we woke up at 4:30, walked past a few mule deer eating their breakfast, then I drove to Yavavai Point (a scenic overlook that a Park Ranger recommended to us) and Tom jogged there. We stayed for almost three hours, watching the sun come up and illuminate the Canyon. Unbelievable. I think I got some cool pictures, but I'm sure they don't do it justice.

We drove back to the room, checked out of our lodge, got some info on nearby parks & monuments we hadn't heard of, then set out and wandered around other vantage points in the Canyon. There are probably about six of them in the South Rim (where we were) and then another six or seven east of the South Rim, on what they call Desert View.

There was also this place called the Watchtower, which is where the last two pictures were taken from. You can see it here!

After driving from one location to the next, stopping each time to admire and take pictures, we headed east and then south to two places we hadn't heard of (a monument and a park): Wupataki Pueblo and Sunset Crater. Wupataki is a bunch of remaining buildings (or, at least their bases) from Native Americans who inhabited the area in the (I think) 1200s. Sunset Crater is a now extinct volcano that first erupted about 800 years ago. Compared to the Grand Canyon, this was more of a pit stop, but both were still cool to see.

We also saw cool wildlife that I took pictures of! A squirrel, a raven, a collared lizard and Petey the dog!

We drove back into Flagstaff (that's where we ate lunch yesterday) because Tom needed to get new shoes. There was a burger place, Diablo Burger, that I wanted to try yesterday (that got great reviews on Urban Spoon) but they were closed on Sundays. I'M SO GLAD I WENT TODAY because it was one of the best, if not the best, burger I've ever eaten. I got the "El Camino" burger, which was a burger (they suggest medium-rare so I went with it) with provolone, pickles, grilled onions and a deliciously spicy chipotle BBQ sauce, all served on a branded English muffin. They also seasoned their fries in a way I'd never had before, which included a bunch of spices including rosemary. Also, the local beer (Mother Road Black IPA) was good, too.

After we had both eaten, we drove east and are now at a KOA Campground (Kampground, I think. Mortal Kombat!) where we're spending the night. It's about as far from roughing it as you can get: we have electricity by our tent, there's free WiFi, and all-you-can-eat pancakes starting at 7 a.m. for $1.99! We'll probably wake up, eat some pancakes, then head out toward Petrified Forest, then up to Canyon de Chelly, Four Corners, and then camp in Utah before our three day stretch of hitting five Utah parks.

Also, there was this sign.

Day Nine

The string of natural wonders continues.

We started off the day in Tucson, planning to head north to Montezuma and then east to Petrified Forest. But, as our host in Tucson pointed out (and I had known before but didn't really think to consider the consequences), our trip would run into a delay when we got to the Grand Canyon because the North Rim doesn't open until two weeks after we're there. So, we did a quick bit of improvisation and instead of heading east to Petrified from Montezuma, we headed northwest and found ourselves in Grand Canyon.

Before we got there, though, we had about five hours to drive. Along the way, we found some cool things! We'd seen a bunch of Sonoran cactuses (I'm not calling them cacti because I don't possess the mental restraint to think of proper pluralities) on the way down to the Longhorn Grill, but I finally got a chance to snap a picture of some.

We saw a sign for a town (I guess) called Bumble Bee, and also Crown King. THE SAME SIGN. ONE PLACE. TWO AWESOME NAMES.

Also, there's this horizon line, which is sorta bonkers.

We drove through Phoenix and got to Montezuma's Castle, which is set in a huge rock probably less than a mile or two from the interstate. It's really cool, and a really great stop to get out and see something awesome and stretch your legs.

We stopped for lunch at a place called Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers. It's a fast food burger chain in the south. Lunch was good -- both the burger and the custard -- but not picture worthy.

So, anyway, I'm driving to the Grand Canyon from Montezuma's Castle and all of a sudden Tom says, "Woah." I look out the window and I see what he sees, and we have to turn around so I can get a picture of it.

We had planned to camp at this campground "near" the Grand Canyon, but it turned out to be like 50 miles away. We checked it out, then headed north to the Canyon to evaluate our options. When we go there, our $25 car admission fee was waived (Hooray for free National Park week! This also saved us $6 at Carlsbad and $5 at Montezuma.), and we were told that there was camping on site, which would be really cool. We head over to the rim to catch the sunset, and it was amazing.

We head inside to check the costs of the rooms and see if there's camping available. We found out that there were no rooms available for less than, like, $170, which is too much for us to spend. We were going to try to get a camping spot, but we were sort of pessimistic about it because we saw a sign that said "FULL" on the way in. The woman at the front desk couldn't get a hold of anyone at the campground, and found out that they had left at 5 p.m. (It was around 8.) So, she disappears and comes back and tells us that she spoke to the manager and is able to give us the last room in one of the lodges, which is normally $190+, for $100. SOLD! People can really be great sometimes.

We're waking up early tomorrow to catch the sunrise, then do some more in the park and then head over to Petrified Forest. Should be another great day!

Day Eight

Today we went to Carlsbad Caverns. They were unbelievable. The coolest thing (by far) that I've seen so far on the trip. I'm going to see a whole lot of national parks and monuments over the course of the next week, but this definitely started things off on the right foot.

You descend through the Natural Entrance down a mile-and-a-quarter slope, ultimately making your way into what's called The Big Room: big enough for six football stadiums to fit inside. The cave is lit by over 1,200 light bulbs that park rangers have put in over the years, and without them, the cave would be pitch black.

I brought my tripod and set long exposures (anywhere between two and 30 seconds) to capture as much light as I could. I came out with five pictures I love, that I posted on Flickr and will re-post here.

After we left the Caverns, we headed West once again and hit a few time zones. Time zones are weird in this area. We were in Mountain, then tracked back to Central, back to Mountain, and wound up in Pacific. We're going to be in Pacific most of today, but go back to Mountain for a few days in Utah. It's super weird.

Along Route 10, we stopped in Arizona at THE THING?, which is just as tourist-y and trashy as I had hoped it would be. I can't tell you what the thing is, mostly because I'm not sure.

You walk through three rooms of just random things, talking about how they were all "the thing" whenever they were made. It's weird.

Then you get here, at the end. This is The Thing:

Some kind of mummified mother and child? I guess.

Then we drove south of Tucson to the Longhorn Grill in Amado, Texas. The place looks awesome during the day, and even cooler at night.

I had a steak with a salad, veggies and boracho beans, which are beans cooked halfway with water, then halfway with beer and tequila and jalopenos and black pepper. They were really good. Everything was good. Well worth the trip!

Day Seven

After leaving Austin, we dropped Lauren off at the San Antonio airport and headed for Carlsbad, NM. The driving in western Texas is very different from the rest of Texas -- it actually looks like you're in the Southwest. Pretty much from San Antonio and beyond to the east could be anywhere.

We stopped in a town called Pecos (as in Pecos Bill) for lunch. This place La Nortena Tomales had a 100% rating on Urban Spoon, so we checked it out. They were out of green tomales, but the red ones were delicious. We split a dozen and could only eat two each for lunch. (We also had two each for dinner, and there's still four left.)

Pecos is also famous for being the place where the first rodeo was held; Wikipedia says it was held on July 4, 1883.

As we neared Carlsbad (and entered Mountain time!), we had to stop for gas, where Tom made a new friend. Her dog is called Huegos, we think, which means "to wiggle." Which, if you ask me, is a really awesome name for a dog.

We got to Carlsbad after all the self-guided and guided tours were done, so we wandered around and took in some sights. This place is awesome, and we haven't even been inside the part that's made it famous.

At 7 p.m., there was a bat sighting event, where at peak times (around August), up to half a million bats awake and fly out of a cave. Photography wasn't allowed, but there wasn't a whole lot to see; we learned about bats for about 45 minutes and then saw probably about 100-200 fly out over a 15 minute stretch. Cool, but even with a camera it would have been hard to capture the moment because it was super dark.

We're camping at an RV park tonight. I tried to take some star trails, but apparently my camera can only take a 30 second picture, and I need way longer than that to show star motion. I'll read the manual tomorrow and see if I'm doing something wrong, but in the meantime this picture of the moon and some stars and a tree is maybe halfway decent but probably not.