Monday, January 19, 2009

Giant cacti, a ghost town, a truly grand canyon and many other natural wonders

Our road trip started by crossing the mountains of California into the desert, taking us to the state of Arizona. Spending the night in Phoenix, we left early in the morning to explore the area around this desert city; the route we wanted to take is called Route 88: The Apache Trail. This road, through a beautiful mountainous desert landscape decorated with some man-made lakes, took us to a ghost town (previously a mining village, now a tourist attraction) called Goldfield, complete with a prison, saloon, brothel, and gunfights like you know them from classic Western films. Continuing further north, the route took us through the spectacular landscape around Sedona (called the "Red Rock country") uphill to the snowy mountain town of Flagstaff, where we slept for the night.

The next day we got up early again, as it was time to drive to Grand Canyon National Park, where we made several stops along the South Rim to admire the truly awesome views down into the most famous canyon in the world.                 

On the way back, we intended to drive parts of the Old Route 66 (no route trip would be complete without it), which was unfortunately undriveable due to the fact that the route is no longer maintained and was therefore very icy. Inside the village of Williams, we did, however, get a glimpse of the historic "Mother Route".
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
Continuing with the non-stop spectacular scenic views (we have seen very few boring landscapes since we left San Diego more than 1000 miles ago), Monument Valley, inside the huge Indian Reserve that is the "Navajo Nation", was next. A 15-mile self-guided loop on a very bad road took us down into this otherworldly land, where many a Western films have been produced. While the sun was setting and the rocks were red, we drove (in our car - not on horseback like in the films) across the border to Utah.

3 comments:

FabienneMisch said...

Hmmmm...!
ech gi jo richteg nostalgesch!...
;-)

en ganz décken Kuss vum Hoory Stein!
md

Tere and Charlie said...

Hey, merci. Wann ech Hoory Stein héieren, ginn ech och nostalgesch...
Ass ären Blog nach online? Wéi war d'URL vun deem?
En décken Kuss un di aner GECKen!
Charel

Anonymous said...

Hola guapos!! Una vez mas acabo de ponerme al dia de vustras andanzas, qué gusto y qué envidia!

Un besin desde Paris y cuidaros.

Leila