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honeymoon - day 5, wednesday may 1st, 2002
may 1, 2002 day 5 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!