impressions of northern arizona

Arizona is basically a lot of desert. We enter the state at seven pm. It is very cold. In fact, my car reports that the temperature has dropped below freezing! It is twenty eight degrees! AND there is snow! Winter wonderness! The windows of the car are very chilly, but we are snug as a bug with the heater going.

We bunker down in Williams, a small town at the end of the Grand Canyon highway. It is full of motels and hotels and Christmas lights and snow that has been pushed to the side of the road. We stay in a really sketchy motel (Roadway Inn) and you can tell that it is extra sketch because the towels in the bathroom are crumpled up in the bathtub and in the sink, ie unwashed.

This is the first time we perform our nightly routine:

1. Bring our luggage inside and transfer remaining bags into the trunk.
2. Take off shoes.
3. Turn on the TV to the weather channel.
   
4. After an hour or so, switch to TLC.
5. Go to sleep.
   

(In the morning, Naomi will wake up hellishly early to go running and do stretches and weights, and I will struggle to become conscious.)

We ask the lady at the Roadway Inn how to get to the Grand Canyon, and she fumbles and confesses that she was not very good at directions, and then proceedes to direct us to "make a left on some such street and that will take you all the way there." That's it? She wasn't good at giving one-step directions? Seriously? I mean, does anyone come to Williams for any reason OTHER than the Grand Canyon?

Williams in the am is stunning. The snow is piled thick in the fields and forest areas next to the road to Grand Canyon. The fir trees are green and thick and full, the sky is bright blue, and the sun is shining furiously. I take about seventy pictures as we are driving. We almost hit some deer. Then, we almost hit a car.

We do the Grand Canyon in twenty minutes, and then we're done. It is spectacular. I've always thought that I wouldn't be impressed when I saw it in person. I've seen so many photos, I've seen it from an airplane, I've been down the Colca Canyon... But it really is awesome. Not so much because of the depth, but because of the distance between the two sides. It's like when you stand at the lookout, the other side of the cliff is so far away that you can see down to the bottom, all the different colored layers of rock. The snow has made the rock layers even more stripey, and there are green shrubs poking out here and there as well.

We take a bunch of photos, including a self portrait of jumping in the snow, and leave. Because how long can you stand around looking at the ground in twenty-degree weather? We have seven more states to visit.

First we take a detour at Meteor Crater, the "best preserved meteorite crater on earth." We are total suckers for superlatives, but don't go inside because of the steep entrance fee. I take a picture of their billboard so we can pretend how awesome it is. We decide we've basically seen every crater since we've both been in Mitzpeh Ramon, and off to New Mexico!

(The Wikipedia pictures of the crater are really neat and it actually looks super cool but don't tell Naomi.)

But not before we stop at the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Park. Both super neat and we get to walk outside and do a quick hike and see the petrified (and crystalized!) tree trunks. The Painted Desert is especially beautiful as the sun is starting to set. We take pictures through the car window. It's the kind of nature beautiful that you want to keep looking and looking, but since there is no lodging, we drive on.