Since
other people's holidays really aren't very exciting to read about, I'll try and
keep the entries relatively brief. But Arizona deserves a bit of good PR. It's
largely known for being hot and deserted - in both senses of the word - and for
laying claim to one of the seven natural wonders of the world, The Grand
Canyon. But the one thing that has struck me in the days since we arrived is
the enormous variety of terrain and landscapes in a relatively small area.
The RV
signifies the second half of our stay in Arizona and the start of our holiday
proper. We arrived a week ago for a conference in Flagstaff. Alec and I hung
out in the hotel for a week, while Andy did some clever physics. In the midst
of this, I also turned Thirty (I think it deserves a capital letter). Although there were no fireworks or surprise
parties or even, in fact, a card from my husband (the less said about that the
better), it turned out to be a good day. We drove east of Flagstaff to see the
'world's best known and best preserved' Meteor Crater: nearly a mile across and
550 feet deep, there's no denying its a Very Big Hole in the Ground. At $16 a
pop, it ought to be. Sadly, the visitor centre is about 30 years out of date
and the exhibits tangential to say the least - after all, there really isn't a
lot to say about a big hole in the ground.
The celestial object that caused it
was about 45m across and travelling at 40,000 miles an hour when it hit, which
are impressive stats, but that is about as far as it goes. A little disgruntled,
we headed back to Flagstaff and north to the Wupatki National Monument. The
first thing you need to know is: it's not a monument. The US seems to have
chosen to call sites of national or historic interest 'monuments', the
equivalent if you like to our national heritage sites in the UK. The Wupatki
'monument' is actually a series of early American Indian settlements, pueblos, which have been found scattered
across the barren Arizonan landscape. Built around 900 years ago from simple
bricks and sand-based mortar, they seem older than they really are.
If you
consider that Durham Cathedral was built and already been worshipped in around
the same time, they start to look a little sad. But they are an unusual feature
out in the hot Arizonan desert, in what is in any case a 'young' country. More
impressive, however, was the lava field we drove alongside to reach them.
Having been created when lava cascaded down from the volcano at Sunset Crater
around the same time as the Wupatki settlements developed, the lava fields now
look like ridiculously deep overturned fields of earth. Except that this
'earth' is solidified molten rock. I've never seen anything like it.
 |
| That stuff that looks like ploughed earth? Actually solidified lava. |
The lava
fields were just one of the many incredible vistas we've seen as we've driven
across the state. When we left Phoenix airport (ground temperature: 41 degrees)
and drove north to Flagstaff, we passed through cacti country. Barren, sandy
and rocky, with poker-straight roads carving through the middle of it, this was
exactly how we had pictured the Arizonan landscape. But as we headed north and
climbed up towards the plateau on which Flagstaff sits, we found mountains,
forests and an abundance of vegetation. We are back in Flagstaff rather
unintentionally. After leaving the conference, we drove back to Phoenix to
collect our RV. Enthusiastic and woefully over-optimistic, we intended to drive
north to Saint Johns (roughly 200 miles north east) that same afternoon.
Unfortunately we hadn't checked any topographical maps (Arizona is flat and
dusty, right?) and we soon found ourselves limping through an unwieldy
mountainous landscape that our rattly old RV simply couldn't cope with (in fact, this will turn out to be just one of an impressive series of bits of misfortune during the trip...). The
scenery was staggering, all the more so because we passed through a dramatic
thunderstorm en route, but by 7pm we'd only traveled 80 miles, so we called it
quits and holed up in a roadside RV park for the night. The next day - today -
we had to rethink our plans, which had originally included driving still
further north to Bluff, Utah by tonight to see Monument Valley. Looking at the huge expanse of map
ahead of us, and having now become accustomed to our RV's rather leisurely pace
(if the road signs specify a 55 mph speed limit, we can be fairly confident we
won't be managing much more than 30), we've scaled back. The stop-off in
Flagstaff tonight is part of our new journey towards Page tomorrow, and the
Grand Canyon the day after. Happily, this change of route allowed us to see the
Painted Desert today: a vast, rolling area of rocky desert in which the rocks
are stratified in different colours. While much of the Painted Desert is
nothing out of the ordinary, some of the vistas are breathtakingly beautiful,
such as the lookout we found just north of Winslow.
Arizona
continues to amaze and surprise us, and we haven't even seen the Grand Canyon
yet. With a bit of luck, out RV will manage to trundle all the way up
there.
