"Remember the Alamo" - Southern States  DAY 2 - Sun., 10 March 2002

After sleeping in until 6am (yipee!), we piled into the Green Spam Can, and made the awesome journey of four blocks to the AM/PM to top off on gas for the Spam Can, and Pepsi for the boy.  He seemed a bit in awe of the mini-mart clerk who was apparently bordering on cute, but at 6am, to be awake and have one's hair done (beyond a ponytail deal) is apparently noteworthy.  Haven taken note, as the previous sentence performed, we left town (and the subject of this girl clerk) behind by 6:30am.  We did pass by the Jack-in-the-Box at Sunset Road at Pecos Road to see if the cute girl was still there working the drive-thru window like she was on Sunday, 16 September 2001.  So, to I-215 we went.

Which turned into Highway 93 darn quick.  We passed through Boulder City (me and my friends) and then over to Hoover Dam (again, me and the companions) before taking the long and rather dull trip down to the Grand Canyon.  We detoured through Williams, AZ based on the signs illustrating it as the "Gateway to the Grand Canyon".  No, not really.  Cute town, but it was an extra two miles for naught.  After 60 miles or so, we reached the small town just before the park entrance, where we filled up on gas.  Given they were the only gas station for 60 miles (or so), I guess it doesn't matter what they're charging per gallon.  I thought it was nice of them to, at some point, still purchase the sign.

So, we drove the quarter mile to the plaza to get into the park.  Some clever sort put up a sign for visitors like me, and penguins and puppies, to be photographed at... it worked, too.  To summarize... tens of thousands of years ago, glaciers passed through this area and gorged the canyon into being.  Today, the National Park Service is doing the gorging, charging $20 per private passenger car (and for buses and the like, $10 per person) to get into the place -- and there's a line to get in despite the fees.  Sure, the sign mentions using the money for roads and improvements, but according to the pamphlet I got from the Sierra Club, you can't improve on nature.  Thus, I demand an audit.  But back to the park.

I took the kids to the first of several look-out points, but they proved to be too active to keep in tow, so I ended up locking them back in the car for the remainder of the visit to the park.  Thus, the rest of the pictures are all me, Me, ME!  :)   Like this one, and this one, and this one, and this one.  My favorite, though, is the one showing me in front of the canyon from the top, through the different layers and cuts, down to the river itself.  

I managed to bump into a burgundy mini-wan of well-wishers, so a U.S. Tour 2002 FrankPen was provided to a member of their party.  They are apparently from Colorado (if the license plate is any clue)... I was hoping to meet up with them again to see from what part of Colorado, as I'll be out in that state in May 2002 (if the plans hold true and Tub of Fun gets the time off of work.)  Toward the end of the visit, there was even some dilemma when a coyote wandered from car to car, apparently because the signs not to feed his sort were ignored in the past.  (The Bald One wisely had the windows rolled up, hence the reflection.

From there, we wandered over toward Monument Valley to see what all the fuss was about.  Stopping for gas before approaching the valley, we were both a tad amused by the billboard we bumped into.  It wasn't quite clear what was trying to be encouraged or promoted, but I was strangely willing to sign up.  Monument Valley itself is where many western films ("movies", as you Americans like to call them) are shot on location.  While the valley itself extends quite a distance well into Utah, we stopped and took a couple of pictures (here, here, here and here) to give you the idea.  I even put on an appropriate hat.

The next stop was Four Corners, the point at which Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado come together - the only place in the United States where four states all meet in one common place.  Of course, that would be too easy, and not give me my day's disappointment.  It seems the folks on the Navajo reservation (which represents the majority of land use in northeastern Arizona) are only open 8am - 5pm.  While the car's clock shows 4:19pm, that's Pacific Time, and we slipped into the Mountain Time Zone when we crossed Hoover Dam.  Hence, we're 19 minutes too late to get any closer.  Damn.  I mean, dam.

Given the rest of the day was shot (it's getting dark, and we're still 100+ miles before we get off the reservation), we head for Shiprock, which is an excellent place to turn right, and head toward Gallup.  Shiprock, the town, is named in accordance with the rock formation with an elevation of 7,132 feet (approximately - my maps are in the car).  The impressive part of that last picture is I took it at the Arizona-New Mexico state line... 20 miles before we reached the town.  The town itself was less impressive, as seen here approaching the town's one signal, and then as we glanced north toward Colorado from the stop light.  And, as all things in the mobile-home based community, the rock continues to tower everything.  (Neatest feature of the town was the double-wide like trailers, placed size by side, to create a quadruple-wide trailer that formed a duplex arrangement.  I didn't get a picture of that, but by the same token, I also didn't photograph the dead steer lying along side the highway, either.

If nothing else, the drive down US Route 666 (creepy, eh) did give us a nice sunset.  And upon our arrival in Gallup, we opted for the not-the-cheapest motel, but not the one with pink neon lighting next to each room, or the more expensive one that doesn't know how to program their message board.  Dinner was Pizza Hut again, but this time the Large One managed to get something larger than a snack size, so all's well.  He fell asleep ages ago, and I'm about to do the same, as soon as I click 'Save'.  Tootles.