Thursday - May 26th, 2011
Grand Canyon and Flagstaff, AZ
15E to 40E. Not so eventful drive, we reached the motel at half past midnight. I think we did very good time. Exhausted, we checked in and unpack some of our stuff for breakfast. Weather was very dry and slightly windy.
Did not bother to shower, jumped straight into bed after putting on home brought sheets -- terrified of the bed bugs, just a small sacrifice for peace of mind.
Wasn't able to sleep that night, tired but still excited about the trip. Showered and made breakfast, croissant sandwiches splattered with chipotle mayo and a few pieces of cold cuts along with tomatoes, romaine, avocados. Also made a few extra for our side trip to Grand Canyon.
After loading all our stuff back into the car, it was well after 9:30AM, we hurriedly continue our journey -- this stretch will take about 4 hours to Grand Canyon South Rim. Not too long after we departed the motel, we start seeing directions to the mother road - Route 66. We thought that might be a whole lot more fun than continue on the I-40. So, we made an exit following the direction. Much to our astonishment, we discovered a pirate's cove as the sign ahead of us says. In the middle of a dessert-y place!?
More surprised to see there's a beach-like resort beyond that sign. Is this what they call an oasis?
Pulled out my trusty ol' phone to see exactly where we were and found out we were at the CA/AZ with the Colorado River running in between, and that is the oh-so-blue river. It looked so fake, even in person.
Again, we followed the sign for Route 66 but came up with a dead-end. So, we traced ourselves back and return to I-40 to resume our journey to Grand Canyon. Oh, found out later the pirate's cove is located at the Moabi Park - http://www.piratecoveresort.com/. Quite the hidden gem.
Oh well, back onto our journey, which we barely started, but glad we stumbled upon this area. Will come back and check this place out. Reached the park entrance after 2PM, quickly gathered our backpack and off we go for the grand view. Since I've been here once before, I already knew what to expect but it was JP's first time so, I observed her reactions, and as expected she was speechless.
View was breathtaking as always, weather was windy and dry. We proceeded to take some pictures and since we did not stop for lunch, we were famished and quickly find a nice spot to enjoy our sandwiches that we've made earlier.
It was without a doubt, best spot I've ever had lunch at. We took a small cooler with all the vegetables -- tomatoes, cucumber, romaine, and avocados to complement our croissant-wich. Oh yeah, it took a little climbing down to get to that spot. Well worth it, and the stares we get from others that followed our descend down here... priceless. Bet they didn't think of having lunch on the spot!
After taking our time with sandwiches and absorbing the magnificent views, we made our way closer to the edge, taking some vanity pictures of ourselves conquering the skies or the full extent of the pictures...
We walked all the way until we reached the Grand Canyon Village about 3miles from the Visitor's Center, went into a souvenir shop that looked like a luxurious adobe home, except it wasn't made out of clay.
We didn't stay long enough to catch the sun set as it was getting late and I was worried about not finding the car in the dark. So, these were the last pictures taken by the Village:
Earlier during our walk, we encountered with this guy with lots of camera equipment, just standing and waiting. I was curious if he was waiting for a bird, or any creature, he said no, he was waiting for the "perfect light". I told him that's at least a couple more hours away... he just smiled. Typical photographers...
We were able to catch a ride back with the shuttle -- due to the high elevation, we felt exhausted with just the 3+mi walk. By the bus-stop, we spotted these:
There were few other people at the bus-stop and everyone's eyes were glued to the deer, I walked toward them to take a better picture, but little did I know a moose appeared at the other side of the road. Then I realized the shuttle was approaching so I quickly ran back to the bus-stop and missed the opportunity to take a picture of the moose. Almost everyone in the bus was enchanted by the sight of the moose.
Our stop was the last stop at Visitor's Center. I was thankful we didn't have to walk all the way back, besides the shuttle gave us a little tour of the whole village and other campsites that we wouldn't be aware of. By the time we got to the car, we were famished and temperature has certainly dropped as it was really chilly and I was still wearing shorts. We needed to refuel for our drive to Flagstaff which is about 1.5hrs away from GC. I was thankful we didn't have to search high and low for food, all just within reach in the backseat or trunk :D
2 comments:
nice eh, a roadtrip. The first shot of the Grand Canyon looks so majestic, can't imagine what it would have looked like being there in person.
But must be tiring noh, driving such a long distance.
It was very fun. The idea was to get away and forget about work -- the long distance/drive did that trick hehe totally forgot about work until on the way home...
Grand Canyon, like everyone said, looked like a mural hehe
Post a Comment