Dairy Queens

In a satisfied haze, we fell into Spot's comforting bosom and slowly joined the highway, heading east into the desert. Still feeling emotional from the previous night's exertions, we comforted ourselves the only way we knew how: we did the laundry. Refreshed, we treated ourselves to a new football. Tom's first reaction was to mercilessly launch it into the busy interstate traffic, but Mike managed to wrestle it from his grasp and stow it safely away in the back of the van. The new ball was safe. For now.

We set our sights for the Grand Canyon, and after a full day's driving through increasingly canyon-like scenery, we found ourselves pulling wearily into a tiny settlement, comprised of just a gas station, motel and bar: this was Jacob Lake, poised around 20 miles away from the canyon. Once again, in what was becoming an alarming pattern, we had somehow neglected to eat all day. And once again soup came to our rescue in the form of a home made, rustic chicken and pasta broth. We could literally feel the life returning to our pallid, frail bodies. We were so comfortable in the warmth of the cosy bar we really didn't want to leave and decided to check in to the adjoining motel. 

Unfortunately it proved too expensive after our Vegas excesses, so we made the excruciating decision to venture out into the icy night and drive into the pitch dark forest towards the canyon, planning to do a 'van night'. Spot wasn't happy, he coughed and spluttered his way along the winding road, complaining of feeling weak...we sympathised. On finding an abandoned campsite near the canyon's edge, we quickly switched off all power, glanced up at the most awesome night sky we'd ever seen, but feeling too weak to stay awake, climbed into our sleeping bags and waited to fall asleep. An hour later we were still waiting. We both felt agitated and short of breath. Eventually we managed to grab a few moments of restless sleep, but were both awake far ahead of our planned 6am start to catch the sun rise over the canyon. 

Grumpily we emerged from our metal cavern, and sprung into action. We only had minutes to locate and reach the canyon edge before the sun broke over the horizon. Skidding to a stop at the end of the road, we leapt out, grabbed the tripod and sprinted down the nearest trail. There was still no sign of the canyon, and again, we were exhausted after a few metres of running. We put it down to a week of excess in Vegas and the early start. 

Suddenly, a jaw-dropping vista panned out before us. Nothing could prepare us for this. In the fuzzy morning half-light, we could make out the shadow of a vast channel descending seemingly indefinitely into the scorched desert. We raced to the end of the path, arriving at a rocky outcrop, perched hundreds of feet above the canyon floor.

We set up the tripod, armed the telephoto lens and waited for the magic to happen. As the sun breached the forested horizon line, it brushed the awaiting dramatic towers of red rock with searingly pure sunlight, defining the face's contours in vivid contrast. We watched for hours as the light and shadows played on the rock's surface. Suddenly we remembered our vital blog demographic stats and realised we needed to balance all this self-indulgent arty reflection with something more lighthearted, so we did some silly poses.

Having reached saturation point after seeing so much awesome scenery, we drove back along the road that had been shrouded in darkness the previous night. It was one of the most hauntingly beautiful stretches of driving of the trip, scorched skeletons of trees lining the road for long stretches between rolling farmland set against a crisp blue morning sky. Along the way we spotted an innocuous sign at the side of the road: 'Elevation 6000 ft.' This explained the strange occurrences we'd been experiencing - at this height there was significantly less oxygen, leading to a decrease in Spot's performance, as well as ours. We needed to get back down to sea level!

Our next goal was Dallas, Texas, but we still had a few hundred miles to cover. Spot was thirsty so we stopped at the gas station at Jacob's Lake to fill him up with the customary $40 of gas. While we waited, we met Jeff from Seattle who was on a road trip of his own. He eased our minds that we hadn't missed anything in not visiting Yellowstone or Yosemite national parks - comparing them to 'zoos for humans'. We had found a real gem here, managing to take in the awesome beauty of the Grand Canyon in complete solitude. Contented, we set off down the road towards Flagstaff. The landscape was just getting more and more dramatic with the parched desert earth turning into dramatic formations of vivid red rock, straight out of Roadrunner. Swinging north, we came across a spectacular pair of bridges built across the imposing Marble Canyon, again it was difficult to take in the sheer scale of the scene.

We left Arizona and entered New Mexico, a discrepancy between Tom's watch and the GPS alerting us to the fact that we'd crossed back into the Central Time Zone. We had instantly lost an hour of our day. Having left the cartoon canyon land and joined up with the bustling interstate, the landscape flattened out and was suddenly a lot less inspiring. Needing a break after taking in so much natural beauty, we were forced to stop at one of the area's cultural culinary landmarks: Dairy Queen. Not only was this a motorway-side fast food joint, it was combined with a deeply weird all-in-one gift shop. We felt uneasy. Abject hunger drove us to order burgers and as we waited patiently for our patties to defrost, we were joined by a delightful local couple, Xavier and Rose. This unnervingly strange looking couple were Navajo Indians, from the local reservation, on their way to their grand-daughter's impending birth in the next state.

Xavier hobbled over to us, plonked himself down at our table, blearily looked up at Mike and unleashed the brilliant opening gambit of: 

"You have beautiful eyes, man". 

Taken aback, Mike stumbled over his words to try to gain some ground in this bizarre interaction...it was too late 

"You have beautiful blue eyes, I love you" our greasy new friend exclaimed. 

Hearing this exchange from the safety of a nearby postcard rack, Tom leapt into action as vital reinforcement. This only aggravated matters. Barely focusing on his new target, Xavier's eyes lit up: 

"Can I touch your nipple?" 

Tom wasn't overly enthusiastic about the idea.

The situation was saved from spiraling out of control with the introduction of Xavier's toothless soul-mate, Rose. The pair descended into giggly discussions in the ancient Navajo dialect, eventually revealing that Tom was a cute version of Ringo Starr, and that we were gay. We were spared a few seconds of attention by a distraction just outside of the window.  Xavier's brother was stood next to their truck, clearly fazed by the concept of the interior restroom; he instead unleashed a full torrent of urine in the middle of the parking lot. Delightful. We hastily collected our burgers and bolted for Spot. 

Still at a loss from our Native American encounter, and now struggling with guts swilling with processed grease, we decided to call it a day and stop in Albuquerque. Everywhere we looked, Route 66 signs blared out from the roadside. This was indeed part of the historic Route 66 - the closest we would come to this piece of road trip history on our route. Scanning the strip of motels on the way into the city, we used our now finely tuned instincts to select a quaint looking Spanish themed inn. 

Our suspicions were instantly confirmed - a bus emblazoned with a traveling team's slogan "Love Falcons" was a tell-tale sign that the hotel was bursting at the seams with cheerleaders. On a routine mission down to the swimming pool, we found ourselves sharing possibly the world's smallest pool with a whole team of cheerleaders. Either under strict orders not to interact with boys, or intimidated by our powerful bodily hair, the girls quickly fled, leaving us with the glorified bath to ourselves. Ah well.