tusayan, arizona (5 mis. south of the grand canyon).

Wow. Lots of travelling and seeing of stuff today. We let out of our
hotel (a Red Roof Inn) this morning at 9am with the express intention of
finding two things: the National Atomic Museum, and the Albuquerque Art
Museum. We stopped off at a McDonalds to get some breakfast. All of this
fast food is starting to get to us, i think. I mean, it tastes good and
all, but my acid stomach is starting to act up, and plus all the driving,
well, lets just say i’m trying to eat more salads, and leave it at that.

So, we do a little back-tracking to find the Nat’l Atomic Museum, and run
smack-dab into an Air Force Base. We search around a little more, and
find that that Air Force Base included the Sandia National Laboratory –
one of the big atomic labs. You needed some sort of credentials to get
onto the base, so we decided to head onto the art museum.

Now, the art museum is on “Mountain Avenue”, which intersects with “Rio
Grande Blvd”. Well, i look on the map, and see an “Montano Ave.” that
meets up with Rio Grand Blvd. I think “hmm.. .they must refer to Montano
as Mountain” (right? right.) Kelly — a spanish major — goes along with
this idea. Let me say now that it was early, and it made sense at the
moment. The net connection in Albuquerque was rather shoddy, so i
couldn’t get good directions. Luckily for us, Albuquerque is small, and
our map is decent. (BTW, this $20 roadmap atlas i got at Borders in St.
Louis is great. GREAT, i tell you). (see sidenote about Borders in St.
Louis, later on).

We finally find the Art museum, which is a small little set of buildings
in the “Old Town” district. As it would happen, Wednesday is a “free
day”, and we save $4. Yay. I must say, the art museum didn’t have so much
art as it did Conquistador and Indian relics. Some art upstairs, and a
neat exhibit about the “Pie Town Homesteaders”. Pie Town is a small town
in southern New Mexico, and sadly, it no longer exists. Luckily, thanks
to the WPA and the NEA in the Depression, there was a photographer sent
out to document pietown. Lots of great black and white pictures. Good
stuff, that. Anyway, there wasn’t a whole lot there else to see ($2
worth, at least).

On to Arizona. We head west again on I-40, travelling into Arizona, and
the Navajo Reservation. I had heard that there was a great little radio
station that broadcast over the rez. KTNN – AM 660, The Voice of the
Navajo Nation. Most of the broadcasting is done in the Navajo tongue,
which I hadn’t heard before. Navajo is an interesting spoken language.
Very quick, and its hard to understand individual words. I can only
imagine the Japanese hearing this over Allied radio during WWII and
thinking “what in the hell?!”. However, the Navajo that I heard was often
interspersed with English like “32 quart ice chest and six pack of Coke”
and various English names. They were doing a live remote from a general
store, and were calling out winners names via the station. The music
choices were interesting country tunes. I can handle this kind of country
– it’s not the polished crap of the local Louisville stations. No Garth
Brooks, Shania Twain or that stuff. Waylon Jennings, George Jones, etc.
Also, there was a good amount of tribal songs as well. I would like to
point out that this was very independent radio. Wonderful, wonderful.
Thanks to the flat ground and the strong AM signal, we listened to this
most of the way into Flagstaff, AZ.

About 1/2 an hour outside of Flagstaff is a place I’ve always wanted to
visit — Meteor Crater. 50,000 years ago, a meteorite slammed into this
place, and there was left a mile-wide, 57 story deep crater, created in 10
seconds. The admission to this “hole in the ground” was $12, but dammit,
I was gonna see this thing. The wind here exceed all previous wind.
Texas wind, East New Mexico wind, all bow down to Meteor Crater wind.
Knock you off your feet, lose your hat wind. Also, we were 7000 feet
above sea level. It was a little cold. Pictures from Meteor Crater don’t
do it justice. Even while looking over it, it’s hard to believe you could
fit the National City building in it. At the bottom, they have placed a 6
foot tall cutout of an astronaut. It’s barely recognizable to the naked
eye. (They used the bottom of the crater as a staging ground for the
Apollo missions, by the way). The road up to the crater are unbound by
fences, and cows are plentiful, much to Kelly’s delight. We stuck around
for a bit, bought some souvenirs, and then we were off. I’d like to point
out that the high altitude has thinned the air considerably. Some of the
stairs at the crater took our breath quite easily. Nutty.

Flagstaff is a tiny little motel-ridden town. We decided to rather take
US180 rather than 64 north, to take the scenic route. This was a pretty
good idea, and some of the most picturesque, high-altitude plains I’ve
ever seen. Along the side of the road was this tiny,tiny little chapel.
It is triangular shaped, and open to the public. It is a step up from a
lean-to, and the pine boards on the inside are tacked with various
votives, messages, and even a number of reservations for weddings, etc.
Kelly and I snapped some photos on the inside, Kelly was pricked with
barbed wire, and a pretty English woman took our picture.

A little down the road was the “White Buffalo” store. They had white
buffalo there, as you would imagine. We stuffed two dollars into a
“donation jug” and peeped us some buffalo. Kelly noted they weren’t that
exciting. I noted that cows are pretty boring as well.

Both of these places are set in a huge meadow of white/yellow grasses
surrounded by mountains, some of which are topped with snow. Beautiful.

Driving through the Kaibob National Forest, we ended up here in Tusayan,
AZ. A small little town that is really just a tourist waypoint. The room
here is a little more expensive than what we’ve been aiming for, but it’s
close to the Grand Canyon, and we’d like to get as much time as possible
tomorrow at the Canyon.

As it turns out, most of the guided tours (actually ALL) of them are not
in service from April 29 – May 3, due to ranger training. We will be
hiking on public trails for the day, I think.

Oh — i also think i made an international faux paus. That pretty English
girl that was at the tiny little chapel had a boyfriend — he was really
tall. So, when I saw a similar woman with some sort of accent and a
really tall boyfriend at the Wendy’s we dined at, I waved and said
“Hello!,” which was immediately met with confused looks. I said, “You
took our picture at the chapel on 180?” “It was triangular, remember?”.
Apparently they didn’t. Turns out, this was in fact NOT the English girl
at all, though Kelly later relented that they did look quite the same.
The reason I said anything to them at all is because this girl had an
accent — it sounded vaguely english! The tall dude with her said “Well,
we are Canadian, so I guess we might have a bit of an accent, eh”. Well,
on they went, and we went back to the hotel, me wondering if I had just
become an “ugly American”. At least I didn’t just keep speaking louder
and louder to them, like you do in France and Mexico — hoping they will
understand your extremely loud English.

Tomorrow, after the Canyon, we head up towards Four Corners, where Arizon,
New Mexico, Colorado and Utah meet. It’s a tourist trap, for sure, but it
will veer us around Oklahoma, and where else can I kiss Kelly in four
states in less than a minute? hehe.

After that, up to Pueblo, Colorado, Kit Carson, Colorado, and all points
beyond.

later!