One with the Road

Historic Route 66

The Route 66 sections in Arizona are not quite as desolate as the California pieces of the road, so there is a bit more to see and because of the altitude, it 20 to 30 degrees cooler as well…..so the heat is much more tolerable. In fact, somewhat to our surprise, large parts of Arizona are quite green and even includes the largest forest of Ponderosa pine trees on the planet. Those particular areas reminded us of western Oregon.

Some notable sights to see on Arizona Route 66 included:

Rusty Bolt on Route 66

Classic Route 66 Gas Station

Wild West Junction in Williams, AZ

We parted ways with Route 66 (for now) at Williams, AZ to pick up the 60 mile drive north towards the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

Grand Canyon South Rim View

If you have never been, this is definitely a must see place. The following quote from the movie Grand Canyon sums it up pretty well:

You ever been to the Grand Canyon? It’s pretty, but that’s not the thing of it. When you sit on the edge of that thing, you realize what a joke we people really are… what big heads we have thinking that what we do is going to matter all that much… thinking that our time here means didly. Just a split second we have been here, the whole lot of us. You know what I felt like? I felt like a gnat that lands on the ass of a cow chewing his cud on the side of the road that you drive by doing 70 mph.

70 mph? Well…that’s what we would have told the officer anyway!

After our visit to the canyon, we returned back to Williams to pickup I-40 for the short drive over to Flagstaff, AZ. We were supposed to spend the night there in Flagstaff, but Sandra had the idea of detouring from there down to Sedona, AZ since it was only about 30 miles south. (At this point in the trip, a 30 mile drive is like going to the corner store.)

Turns out that Sedona is fantastic! So fantastic, in fact, that we had to stay an extra day here today and soak up more of the place before moving on.

Typical Sedona Town View

Road view going into Sedona

While here today, we decided to try out one of the popular Jeep tours. Ours was with the Pink Jeep Tour Company. The tour we selected was a scenic tour about 7 miles up along a rugged dirt road to the canyon rims.

Casner Canyon Dirt Road and View

Tour photo with our guide

There are definite similarities between the canyon here and the Grand Canyon, but our guide was telling us today that the geology of the place is not quite the same as the Grand Canyon even though some of the rock layers are common. In any case, our guide was great and the tour itself was great a time too.

After our Jeep tour finished up, we went just north of town to find a swimming hole type place known as Grasshopper Point in the Casner Canyon. This place is pretty easily accessible on foot right off the main road in and out of the canyon. We found many people there swimming in the pools of the river and others climbing up the canyon walls and jumping or diving down back into the water. One particularly brave soul we met there named AJ made the following dive from what must have been about 50 feet up:

It is hard to appreciate in the video, but that jump must be done just right so as to clear all the ledges that follow below and to stay clear of the bottom of the pool. Kudos to AJ for having the guts/skill to make that jump several times.

In any case, Sedona was a great impromptu layover. And, BTW, if you never see us in Rochester again, this place is probably where you’ll find us.

Tomorrow we are New Mexico bound.