Sunday, October 17, 2010

Flagstaff, Arizona, United States of America

Good morning and welcome to the latest new state. We had a bit of an ordeal finding a place to stay last night, but I will explain how we got here first.

We awoke early again in Provo in order to get an early start on what appeared to be a long day. First we drove 4 hours across Utah towards the east side of the state so that we could see Arches National Park. The park itself is a series of stunning vistas and geological formations. We spent several hours wandering around the park taking hundreds of photos.

After that we got back in the car and actually drove through a place I would have probably freaked out over, if it were 10 years ago. I used to be a mountain biker in a previous life. Loved it, spent all my time riding, or reading about bikes. My dream destination at the time was the mecca of mountain biking: Moab, Utah (I even had a bike named Moab when I was young). I finally got to see the place with my own eyes and it did not disappoint. That part of Utah is definitely worth another visit.

Following the nostalgic visit we headed south for Arizona and on the way discovered an excellent road that went through Monument Valley. This turned out to be a fantastic place to watch the sun set. While we were driving down the road we came around a corner and noticed a bunch of people on the road so I pulled over. After stopping I noticed that the site looked familiar and figured that this location was in Forest Gump. Then I glanced to my right and saw a sign that this was the 'location' where Forest stopped running and went home. So naturally I went for a quick run down this road.

Now, getting to the hotel dilemma. We were planning on staying in the middle of nowhere but somewhere close to the Grand Canyon so that we would be properly situated for the morning. The perfect location appeared to be Tuba City. I noticed that there was an abundance of traffic and my worst fears (well not THE worst, but in this scenario, worst) were confirmed when we saw a temporary road sign displaying information about the City Fair. All hotel rooms were booked and we were forced to drive an extra hour into Flagstaff to even have a hope of finding a room. We pulled into a few places in town and found that they had no vacancy. Finally we made it to a hotel that had two rooms left but was a little pricey. I decided that we should drive around to see if there's anything else, but alas found nothing so we returned. Upon return, the room with two queen beds had been taken and the only thing left was a room with a bed and a hide-a-bed. Needless to say, I earned a sleep on the hide-a-bed last night.

I've only barely scratched the surface of the photos I've been taking, but I do have one to show you. Riley took this photo of me today. It's a little behind the scenes view of what I do when I'm taking photos.


Next overnight stop for us is Las Vegas.

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