Coming round the mountain....

I had to pause after Monument Valley. I honestly was not sure that anything else that we would see on our travels would be able to come close to the intensity of emotion I experienced there. We had a good night at a ‘classic’ Route 66 hotel, El Rancho, which was all dark wood and silver screen film stars - rather good margaritas - decidedly average food. We were in the Alan Ladd room and whilst it was interesting for its history, I just could not shake the memory of the monoliths I had seen.

We set off early, after a rousing breakfast of Huevos Rancheros for what I thought would be a perfectly adequate day of site seeing topped off by a swim in a hotel pool, which I was craving. And then we hit The Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. And once again my heart soared with the vast open spaces, the dry dry wind in my face, the ever changing landscape, one moment sweeping huge plains, followed by strange almost ice cream shaped mounds and in turn deep valleys and high mountains with soaring birds. Once again it is like stepping into a film set and I want to FLY! It seems I love the desert, I always knew I loved the heat, but this trip has confirmed that I love the vast open plains and the HUGE red rock cliffs. The Painted Desert is a well managed national park, a pleasing drive through with good easy spots for epic picture taking and short walks - a more sanitised, no not quite that, but just easier perhaps, version for sure of the heart wrenching beauty of Utah, but still worthy of gasps.

A walk through the Crystal Forest, a moon like plain filled with prehistoric logs that have petrified and turned to crystals, whilst still having what looks like bark, yet feels like rock, is just astounding and confirms my now complete amateur geologist status. What I was expecting to be a perfectly adequate day of site seeing became another day of too much view for my eyes and another exciting exploit with my eager co-adventurer.

We land after our stroll on the moon, in the land of dinosaurs and experience a small town bar, complete with ‘no fire arms on show, multiple tv screens showing either baseball or cage fighting and one of the weirdest toilets I have ever seen. We swim, eat dull Italian food in a portacabin and seemingly either gain or loose another hour making us not only unsure as to what the damned time it is but also whether we should be going to sleep or eating more food.

The following day starts, as most days shouldn’t, with a near decapitation, as Sam narrowly and skilfully avoided sheets of corrugated iron flying off the back of a flat bed truck - but then continues with less heart stopping fear and more jolly mountain fun. Arizona is undefinable, with the landscape changing from desert, to plains, to mountains and to a MASSIVE METEOR CRATER all in the space of a couple of hours. And after a few hours of excellent adventuring we drive into what can only be described as Switzerland... small fun towns nestled in pine trees lined mountains with fresh cool air, vegetarian food and, in Flagstaff, an excellent punk band playing as we eat lunch! Flagstaff is one of the gateways to The Grand Canyon and more importantly has at least 5 craft beer breweries, including the rather excellent Dark Skies brewery and we are nourished, fed, ale’d and are ready to push on to our final overnight stop on Route 66. And this is where it happens.... we start to see signs for Los Angeles. Signs that I have always SQUEAKED with excitement at seeing and now for the first time ever am experiencing such a mix of emotions over. I love LA and we have fun stuff planned there, but it signifies the end of these adventures and to not being with Sam 24/7. So we do the only thing we can do...find the MOST EXCELLENT BAR not just in town but maybe on the whole trip and sit and drink cocktails and buy excellent ‘merch’ for the whole family and talk and talk and talk and have to put on our newly acquired long sleeve tops for the short walk back to our adequate and antiquated motel.

LOVE ARIZONA