no internet access for the last couple of days...sorry...will try to be better as there are mostly bigger towns on the way now. :-)

The Epic Road Trip
day three
Six Flags Magic Mountain. Awesome. I thought I was going to die several times, but had a blast…it was great. My aunt played hookey from school (she’s an elementary teacher) and came too—it was fab! Was so tired when we got home that I pretty much passed out.

The Epic Road Trip
day four
Driving to the Grand Canyon. Good times had by all, of course! Again, mom keeps driving and I keep passenging. Passengering? Whatever…not driving! We tried SO HARD to get there by sunset, but nnoooooo, due to a freaking PARADE closing a block of the street we needed to drive on in order to get there! Dumb town. Anyway, we drove much of the way on Route 66 instead of I-40 because it was scenic and we could. We got to the GC at 8, the sun had set at 7:45. so we looked around, then went to the evening program. Ranger Randy presented a thoroughly fascinating hour on “six sweet souvenirs” to take from the grand canyon. I was so enthralled….until he started to sing and mom actually said (joking, of course) “maybe we can buy his cd!” and I busted out laughing even harder than I had been before. And no, I’m not joking about his name. oy. It was so awful, I begged to be allowed to leave mid-presentation. Mom said no. anyway, he was all into the powerpoint, the singing (Badly, and asking for audience participation that was even worse) with the guitar…and talking like everyone was 6 even though the average age in the place was probably 50.
Thankfully, we decided to get a hotel close to the canyon. I think the hour drive back to Williams would have killed me…and the hour up in the morning wouldn’t have been so fun either.

The Epic Road Trip
day five
Holes in the Ground, rocks that used to be trees, really old houses. Really really old rocks. (duh)

The Grand Canyon was super awesome—looked at lots of cool things, took photos, had a great time. Beautiful, awe-inspiring, etc. Drove briefly through Navajo Reservation—distressing poverty, or at least distressing lack of pride and therefore lack of cleanliness on the property. Some funny signs though—like by the little jewelry markets signs would say “nice Indians, behind you!” or “friendly Indians ahead!” or “got turquoise?” I was amused. There were several pueblo ruins in our day, which was VERY cool. For the second day in a row we ate lunch at Del Taco. Surprisingly good, and it’s not taco bell, which means that we’re not boycotting it, so it’s even better! We tried to see the meteor crater but it was ridiculously expensive and I didn’t want to go in the museum—I just wanted to stand on the edge of the meteor crater, duh! It’s big, though, so we saw the impact on the drive up to it, and we saw the picture in the brochure. That’s going to have to be good enough—it was so much $$ that even I, the non-budget girl, nearly had a heart attack. The Painted Desert and Petrified Forest were SO COOL, we spent almost 3 hours in the park after they told us it takes people 45 minutes to 2 hours to see it. And we skipped a couple of trails. There’s just so many pieces of tree!

The town we were supposed to stay in tonight was super shady, so we drove half an hour to the next one. The first town, as we were driving in, had two LDS churches and an Assembly of God. There were two hotels, and the only restaurant appeared to be the one at the Days Inn, which looked sketchy and smoky. The whole town looked dead and the weird vibes (especially the slightly odd LDS vibes…no offense meant…) were overpowering and I insisted that we keep driving. I’m glad we did. We’re in a nice, clean hotel, we ate really good pizza, and there was a Safeway where we could buy milk and swipe plastic spoons so we can eat cereal out of the plastic cups next to the sink in the morning. :-) ha!
Anyway, we have 10 hours of driving tomorrow so I’m going to bed. I know this isn’t very exciting, but I promise it’s a good time in the car, so far. We’ve listened to 24 cd’s since leaving home. We’ve filled the gas tank only 6 times (maybe 7?), but then again susan drove everywhere on Monday. We’ve seen some pretty good road signs. No elk, though, in spite of signs that warn us to “be alert” for them for the next 36 miles. We did see two California condors today, though! I’m waiting to see my first saguaro cactus. That will be an exciting little moment. :-)
We’re stopping briefly in Roswell, NM tomorrow. If we see any UFO’s, y’all will be the first to know, I promise. Heheh!
Time for sleep so that day six can be productive! tatafornow…