We hopped into the RV promising the kids a shorter ride today with a few stops to see things. Our first stop was our very first national park: The Petrified Forest and Painted Desert. We whipped out our national park pass proudly and presented it to the ranger, who promptly advised us that we needed to sign the back of it in order for it to be valid. Rookies.
The road through the park actually goes about 24 miles and it loops through the Painted Desert first and then on through the Petrified Forest. You can pull off and stop at various points to look at things, so we jumped out at the first opportunity to take in the Painted Desert. It was the first cool thing the kids had seen on the trip landscape-wise and they were definitely impressed. It looked like a scene from another planet, with craters, valleys and hills striped in subtle hues of orange, brown and red. After taking that in for a few minutes we continued on to the Petrified Forest.
We turned off on a little side road to do a short hike through the Petrified Forest and managed to park the RV between another car and a motorcycle. We hiked along a winding path through hills of white and gray, a sort of moon-like landscape. I'm not sure what I pictured, but for some reason the word "forest" made me think there would actually be standing trees. The forest is actually the remnants of petrified wood scattered throughout the park, chunks of brown that look like wood but are hard as rock. After checking things out and running across the same Canadian family over and over again (the dad was chain smoking while hiking), we got back in the RV and moved on. We all decided we'd seen enough petrified wood for one day and that it was time for lunch.
We stopped in the little town of Holbrook, a little village off the main highway whose claim to fame was a little diner called Joe and Aggie's. Joe's daughter runs the place and she told us the whole story of how a certain character in the movie "Cars" was based on her mom and dad and the diner. They had photos on the wall to prove it and Joe, a quiet elderly man, proudly pointed them all out to me.
Next stop: Winslow, Arizona! Of course I cranked up the Eagles "Take It Easy" and we belted out the famous line of the song as we set out to find the corner with the flatbed Ford. There actually is a corner there with a plaque and a red Ford truck for photo ops, complete with a gift shop on the opposite side of the street that plays Eagles tunes non-stop. The kids didn't get this one at all, even after we explained the significance. All they cared about were the milkshakes they were going to get at Joe's Diner across the street, well worth the wait as they were made for us to-go.
On our way out of Winslow we took in the ruined remains of old Route 66 motels and diners, sad shells disintegrating on the sides of the main road out of town. I pointed out the Wigwam Village to the kids, a still operation motel where the guests stay in rooms that are actually built to look like wigwams. Then it was back on the road to the Grand Canyon.
At this point I had taken over the wheel and as we approached Flagstaff I noticed a brown sign indicating that I needed to exit for the Grand Canyon. This led to an argument between me and John over which way we needed to go. We listened to the GPS lady which is not always the best idea since she tends to re-route in weird ways. We ended up off the main road and on a two lane road that eventually wound its way up into the mountains. It was very scenic and ordinarily I'd be all over that, but it was extremely remote with absolutely nothing around and all I could think of was what the hell will we do if something happens to the RV? I had visions of us stranded in the wilderness without a cell phone signal. There weren't even any other cars on the road.
It was very beautiful though and we saw some amazing vistas and drove through the Kaibab Forest. Eventually the road dumped us out onto route 69 which is the main road to the Grand Canyon. As I pulled over in exhaustion to let John take over the wheel, I noticed that the Flintstone's Bedrock village was on the other side of the road, another kitschy stop recommended by our route 66 book. I could see Dino's head poking up over the run down entrance to the park, but by this time we were all ready to get to our destination so we decided to skip saying hello to Fred and Wilma. Plus the kids were getting tired of seeing things that only made sense to me and John so we pressed on.
At long last we pulled into our RV Park, the Grand Canyon Camper Village in Tusayan, Arizona. We parked in our gravel spot which was somewhat uneven and caused us to be leaning to the right for two days, but we didn't care. This stop marked the first time we would actually stay put for two nights and that felt incredible.
At this point it was already 6 p.m. and despite being exhausted from the day's activities, we quickly ran out to the main road to catch the shuttle to the Grand Canyon to catch the 7:40 pm sunset. This was recommended to me by my friend Stacey who had just been at the canyon a few weeks earlier and I knew there was no way we'd last in the park until sunset the next day, so off we went. After multiple bus rides crammed in like sardines with all the other sunset seekers we finally reached Hope Point and settled in at the rim of the canyon. The first glimpse of the canyon was amazing for all of us since none of us had ever seen it. We literally got there about ten minutes before the sunset. It was highly worth it despite the grueling task of catching multiple shuttle buses to make our way back to town. We ended up eating pizza in our RV at 9:30 at night and falling into bed, ready to tackle the Grand Canyon itself in the morning.
Next: hiking the Grand Canyon and receiving some unsettling news from home.
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