To the desert

We are leaving now (about 7.45 a.m.) & have a long drive ahead to Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Not sure what the wi-fi will be like but we will emerge on Friday 8 June in Salt Lake City.

You sure see some interesting things on the road ...

We arrived in Flagstaff about 4.30 p.m. after 895 kms. We shared the drive in 4 lots. My Friend did the very tiring bit from Santa Barbara along the myriad of freeways skirting to the north of Los Angeles (LA); he & Julie (the GPS) made a good team - it would have been impossible without her. (I have to say I am very impressed with the road infrastructure in the US. The entire trip today was on freeways; also the driving here is generally good - we have found drivers to be unaggressive & respectful).

It was amazing how quickly the city became desert once we escaped the confines of LA - the landscape was amazing!

I took over once we escaped the LA traffic until petrol & lunch stop at Bullhead City: an unremarkable place but an "oasis" of sorts as the Colorado River flows through here providing water for farms & so transformng the dusty, rocky desert into green. By this stage we had taken 5.5 hours to travel 555 kms.

It was 104 deg F - convert that into deg C you baby-boomers out there! (=40 deg C). We had a picnic lunch at a park by the river. Boy, it was hot!

Shortly after lunch, we crossed the boundary into the county of Arizona. We saw exits to Route 66 - you can still see remnants of this once great highway (which went from Chicago to Los Angeles, a distance of 3940 kms).

We shared the last 340 kms of the drive equally & saw lots of long freight trains, eagles floating on the up-drafts, lots of desert with lovely brown, grey, green & mauve colours, some wonderful rocky outcrops & beautiful mountain ranges. But we were pleased to get in.

Our hosts at England House B&B have restored an historic home & are very enthusiastic and accommodating.

We had no idea, but there is an historic telescope at Flagstaff & it was just a hike up the road from where we are staying. The "planet" Pluto was discovered here (it as now been re-classified as a "dwarf planet").

As it so happened, we arrived just as the last tour of the day was taking place, so we joined it & learned about the history of the observatory. And we are obviously not up with things astronomical because, apparently, on May 20 there was an eclipse of the sun and TOMORROW (5 June) there is a Transit of Venus which only occurs rarely (there is not another for 105 years) - AND as it also turns out, the Lowell Observatory (http://www.lowell.edu/ ) at Flagstaff is where it is ALL HAPPENING!

So we have walked into something special. There was a lecture tonight by 2 eminent astrologists & then we got to see the planet Saturn through the main telescope. It was all pretty amazing.

And tomorrow it is all happening in the Grand Canyon - & we had no idea! (http://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/transven.htm )

On our walk to the observatory, we saw elk grazing amongst the conifers.

Needless to say, dinner became a very poor last & so we had cheese & jam sandwiches plus fruit salad from our "picnic" supplies as it became too late to organise anything else.





Addendum: On one of the freeways skirting LA, we saw this exit: