Hotel Arizona

(it's a song by Wilco...it works)

Partly because we went to sleep at 8pm and partly because we had a big day ahead of us, we got up at 4 and were gone from Zion by 4:30. Most of the time on this trip we're just a little unsure of what time it actually is. I didn't realize that although Arizona is on mountain time, they don't follow Daylight Savings Time. The route we took had us leave Utah, go back an hour when we hit Arizona, go forward an hour when we hit the Navajo Nation area which does observe Daylight Savings Time, and go back an hour again when we got to the Grand Canyon. I think we got there at 8.

Rick and I were both worried that it wouldn't be so Grand after all of the other things we have seen so far on the trip. We didn't need to worry. It was so impressive that it didn't look real. It is hard to wrap my mind around the massive scale of the canyon. My only criticism is that I wanted to get into it. You can't do that without reserving a spot on a 2 day hiking trip months in advance. It's great to drive to the different viewing platforms on the south rim, but every other park we went to allowed us to immerse ourselves in the place. I think we will have to schedule a return trip to really experience the place.

On the drive to the Petrified Forest we listened to Empire by Orson Scott Card. We had to turn it off as we got close because I wasn't paying attention to road signs. The story is really gripping and pretty intense. It gives a scenario for starting a modern civil war here in the US. We will see how the story ends later but it is a great road trip listen. It is a well written story and it gives us something to talk about when we stop listening.

I was a little worried about the Petrified Forest. It seemed very off the beaten path. We passed through the town of Holbrook on our way there. It is situated right on Route 66 and we noticed an interesting Wigwam motel that looks suspiciously like the Cozy Cone Motel in Radiator Springs. In writing this post I found that we were correct that the Wigwam was the inspiration for the Cozy Cone. That is pretty neat!
So after driving on Route 66 we entered the Petrified Forest. There was a nice movie and exhibits at the Rainbow Forest Museum. We took two short walking tours. The number of petrified logs is just amazing. The rest of the park drive through the Painted Desert was also very pretty. Again, we were so sore from yesterday that we weren't at all upset to be doing driving tours.

We stopped for the night at our first KOA in Flagstaff. Boy, these places are nice. We have electric at our site and the showers were awesome and clean. There are activities for kids, a store and wifi. Today we head to Phoenix to stay with friends for the night followed by a day in Joshua Tree and then off to San Francisco and the Pacific Ocean.