An early start today as we had lots to see and we were aiming to get to the Grand Canyon. We were on the road by 8.15 it was looking a little cloudy and was cooler than the rest of our trip, our first stop was the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert. The landscape and views were amazing but there were no trees! It was a natural beauty caused by the forest being preserved by falling into streams and flowing into the flood plains where they were preserved and created many patterned fossils etc.
We then went on with our trust steed, heading for the Wigwam motel in Holbrook which was a really nice photo opportunity, as they have classic cars parked out side like the Delorian and a classic Hudson to name a couple. It looked like they were painting and prepping it to be run as a motel again, but no worries we will be staying in one of the Wigwam motels later in our trip.
Next was onto the Jackrabbit trading post, as stop which had been recommended by our guide book. It wasn't much and not really what we expected so we pushed on to the next thing.
We now came to the Meteor Crater, in Arizona. Here we took a guided tour which was a 1/4 mile walk around the rim of the crater with an excellent guide (Edwardo) who was both informative and funny. Edwardo was fortunate enough to have the crater and all of the Bar T Bar ranch as his back yard as he lived in an apartment on site. The crater measures nearly a mile across and more than 550 ft deep, if you put a 60 storey building on the craters floor it would not reach the rim! And at the museum they still have one of the largest pieces of surviving meteor, which was 90% iron and so dense it weighed in excess of 1000lb. We could have happily stayed here much longer but had to press on (or so we thought).
We arrived in Flagstaff, AZ near to Grand Canyon where we hoped to find info on helicopter tours. Unfortunately we missed the visitors centre 1st time and after a detour came back and got some leaflets and advice. At this time we left the flights for morning thinking it was gone 4 o'clock, later though we realised that once again we had changed time zones and our clocks were an hour ahead, doh!
We got to our hotel and after checking in phoned and booked flights for early next morning to fit in with our continued adventure. This is when we realised our second thing, that our itinerary had another 2 night stop here in William, doh again!
Although frustrating, not the end of the world as the visitor centre told us of a rt66 festival in Flagstaff on Saturday we could now go to.
Early night for an early start this night, and yes Craig is managing the early starts!
(sorry this blog comes late due to failing WiFi at the hotel)
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