Old Timer Garage

Today we have to pack up our luggage again. Tonight we will stop in Kayenta.
After breakfast, we are back on the road towards the entrance of the Grand Canyon National Park. We try a different route today. It is pretty much the same distance so we think it would allow us to see a different scenery than yesterday.

On top of a different scenery, it is a mountain in fire that we will see. From afar, it looks like a volcano but as we get closer, it is a completely black mountain with huge clouds of smoke billowing above it. It is not a huge fire but it still is pretty impressive to witness.

Once again we drive through gigantic empty spaces with just a few buildings in the middle. It is pretty weird actually because these sheds don’t really look like much (not even 10 square meters for some of them) but most of them have an air conditioning unit on the roof, even the smallest ones… weird sense of priority.

We get to the edge of the canyon once again without any more delay thanks to the pass that we still have taped to the windscreen of the car and we take the road that goes along the edge to another spot that we noticed on the map. At the end of the day, the Grand Canyon is the Grand Canyon but once the first shock digested, it is a huge hole with rocks and a river at the bottom so if we can find a spot where the scenery is different from yesterday it will be better. The thing is that the Grand Canyon is so big that if you just walk along the edge, you won’t be able to see much of it because it will take forever to walk to somewhere where what you see is different from your starting point.

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We stop from time to time to take a few pictures. It is at least as impressive as yesterday and the fact that there is no barrier on the edge of the canyon contributes a lot to this feeling.

 

On the car park, a Mustang and a few big SUV: Suburbans, Escalades, Yukon… it is something very different from what we are used to see in Europe and I could easily see myself driving one of those.

Before starting our walk along the edge of the canyon, we take a quick lunch. Today is quieter than the past few days. Everybody is a little tired from the fast paced past days so one quieter day is welcome by all.
The edge of the canyon is just at the end of the car park so we won’t have to walk more than 5 minutes to get at the bottom of a tower that stands right above the steep edge.
It is one of the touristic spots marked on the map that everybody gets when you pay your entrance to the park so there is a little more people than the other places where we stopped yesterday afternoon and this morning.
The canyon itself is (a little) less deep here and it is easier to see the Colorado river running at the bottom.
After a few pictures, we decide to go up in the tower to get a better view. Pictographs are painted inside the tower and a few small windows allow people to see the outside scenery. The colours are perfect for taking pictures and we take advantage of them to the fullest.

 

Two days to visit the Grand Canyon are more than enough in my opinion. The scenery is impressive but unless you are into geology or if you want to go down into the canyon (a guide is mandatory to do that), it remains a canyon and it is so huge that if you don’t move along the edge, you will quickly get the impression of always seeing the same thing.

The sun is starting to go down on the horizon when we get back in the car. This time, we get out of the park and follow the edge of the canyon for a while before starting to cross a huge flat space with once again these endless straight lines in front of us.
We are first heading towards Tuba city which we will go through without stopping and we will continue towards Kayenta right in the middle of the Indian reserve where we booked a hotel for the night.
The sunset colours are amazing but very quickly, the night sets in and we can’t see a thing. The show will only be more impressive tomorrow morning when we wake up.
We get to the hotel around 10 pm. After getting the keys to the room, it is more than time to get some food.

It is late so it will be a Taco Bell for tonight that is still open. We are the only white people in there and everybody turns around to look at us when we get into the restaurant. Everybody here looks like Indian people with dark skin, long straight and black hair and for some reason they look surprised to see us there.
After a quick dinner, we get back to the hotel to enjoy a splash in the swimming pool before going to sleep. The pool is cold but after the hot temperatures of the past few days, we won’t pass an opportunity to get in the pool.

To be continued… here: 10- Monument Valley

 

 

 

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