Grand Canyon, AZ, USA
The Grand Canyon has always been high on the list of things I’d like to see. Yes, it’s just a hole in the ground. But it’s a big one. And it’s an iconic one. So we hopped on a plane to go and have a look into it.
When our plane landed in Phoenix it was a sunny afternoon, and a balmy 30°C. We collected our 2WD rental car and headed north towards the Grand Canyon, with an overnight stop planned at a little town called Flagstaff. As we drove north on I-17, the cacti-strewn desert of Phoenix soon gave way to rocky, scrubby desert, and the temperature dropped. Half an hour later, with the sun starting to set, rocks had become big boulders, and the thermometer was reading 7°C. Another 80 miles north, and the temperature had now dropped to -10°C, and snow was covering the edges of the highway. It was dark by the time we drove into Flagstaff, and snow was drifting 6 ft high alongside the roadside. We slithered our way through the streets, into the icy parking lot and checked into our little guesthouse, the Bespoke Inn Flagstaff.
Flagstaff is on Route 66, and mainly seems to be a place where people stay before going to the Grand Canyon. Its other claims to fame are that it’s home to the telescope that first spotted everyone’s favourite ex-planet, Pluto, and its main street had a passing cameo in Forrest Gump. Not bad for a little town in the mountains. After setting the heater in our little room to maximum, we headed out into the snowy evening to my favourite kind of place for dinner, Lumberyard Brewing Co., a cosy little bar serving cold beer and vast piles of slow-cooked American food.
After spending all night digesting and wishing I’d not eaten a few kilos of meat, we woke early, drawing the curtains to see bars of icicles covering the windows from top to bottom. It was still -10°C, so we didn’t go far, but slipped over to eat some breakfast at the charming Forêt, before clearing the ice from the car and pointing it in the direction of the main event: the Grand Canyon.
We’d treated ourselves to a ‘rimside cabin’ perched on the edge of the Grand Canyon. It wasn’t particularly plush, the view of the Canyon from the window, and its proximity to the edge for early morning viewings was 100% worth it. In doing our research to see how close to the rim it actually was, I’d stumbled across a video of the cabin. This video was fantastic, as despite being on the edge of one of the world’s largest canyons, the guy filming was more excited about the cabin’s proximity to the car park, focusing entirely in the opposite direction to what, presumably, absolutely everyone else was interested in.
Due to the snow, the main road around the Canyon was closed, but, deciding that it may potentially be our only ever chance to see the Canyon, we ignored the sign, dodged the barriers and joined the snow ploughs and gritters along the road, stopping every so often to crunch our way through the snow to peer over the edge. It’s going straight on my ever-growing list of things that look exactly like the photo but somehow also a million times better. There was a light dusting of snow around the edges of the Canyon, but the red rocks stretched down, far into the valley below.
We spent a couple of days exploring the edges of the Canyon, getting excited about things that we’d only even discovered a few hours previously – “this is the cabin that Mary EJ Colter built, how amazing that we’re lucky enough to see it”. I still find it hard to imagine how the whole Canyon was hewn by a river that is so small that it can barely be seen from the top, but that’s what all the signs say.
One morning we got up before dawn to watch the sunrise over the Canyon. When we emerged from the cabin it was still -14°C, and with a light wind across the Canyon, you felt the harsh bite of every single degree below zero. I made two coffees, immediately dripped one onto our doorstep where it froze into a lethal sheet of ice, and we crunched our way through the half-light to the edge of the Canyon.
We found a good spot, near a gaggle of other bleary-eyed early risers, and watched as the sky cycled through a range of pinks, purples and blues. Eventually the sun peeped over the edge of the Canyon, casting the opposite wall of rock in a magnificent rich pink. It was roughly at around this time we started to become aware of a commotion, and noticed a 90s Jaguar had become stuck in the snow in the car park behind us. It was revving and revving, clouds of thick exhaust billowing out the back, but seemed to be getting even more steadfastly stuck into the snow. The driver found a spade and was digging away at the snow, but it didn’t make any difference.
The early risers by this point were spending more time watching the car-retrieval antics than the actual sunrise. At some point a security guard came out, and before long the car was being rocked back and forth, its engine whining and revving, the exhaust cloud now enveloping the entire car park. Nobody was watching the sunrise by now – we all stood with our backs to one of the natural wonders of the world and enjoyed the plight of the Jaguar. I don’t think they ever actually got it shifted. It could still be there now.
The man making his detailed video about the rimside cabin car park now makes a lot more sense; it’s an important part of the Grand Canyon experience.
With the temperature still way below freezing and our thermals struggling, we headed back to the cabin to pack up and drive down into the desert to warm up. The final stop of this leg was a few of the little towns along Route 66. Since the I-40 was constructed in the 1980s, a lot of the original Route 66 is no longer officially there, but between Flagstaff and Kingman there remains a 100-mile stretch, which embraces its location and the associated road trippers that come with it.
One of the little towns along the road, Seligman, was sound asleep as we passed through, but we noticed the sides of the street were lined with cars from the 50s and 60s, giving a passing rusty glimpse of how it would have looked before the I-40 was built. A few miles further along Route 66 sits Hackberry General Store. Nestled among some cacti at the side of the road, it is definitely not a general store – it had a few drinks and snacks, but 90% its stock was classic Americana, Coca-Cola enamel signs, old bits of Buick, hamburger phones, and stacks and stacks of US license plates. I bought five, obviously.
Route 66 rejoins the main highway at a little town called Kingman. We stopped just before the junction, at Mr D’z Route 66 Diner, which was touristy, gimmicky, and absolutely superb. I had a giant pink strawberry milkshake with a cherry on top and felt very sick and very content indeed. Waking up at the Grand Canyon, driving down Route 66, and a massive milkshake at a diner. It doesn’t get much more ‘USA’ than that. And to top it all off, the next stop? Las Vegas.
