Up at 8.30, out of the door ~10, on the road heading for the south rim of the Grand Canyon and then onto Flagstaff, Arizona.
We decided to travel down some of Route 66, just to say that we had, but it turned out that there wasn't much to see there apart from desert, desert. And some more desert, with a bit more desert thrown in for good measure. It was exceedingly beautiful, at least at first, but after a while the brain stops noticing things that don't change so much - and you do get used to it after a few hours of seeing nothing but the road stretching out in front of you in a straight line to the horizon with huge expanses of brown dirt and/or grass in every direction.
Route 66 is famous because it was one of the original trans-American highways and originally ran from Chicago due south before bending towards the west coast in the midwest and then pretty much arrow straight towards Los Angeles and the Pacific coast covering a total of 2,448 miles. Good ol' wikipedia.
We were hoping to see some of the old towns that used to be vibrant and no longer - so called Ghost Towns - but there was nothing completely derelict. This may seem a peverse wish, but there is something fascinating about it - there are a lost of great resources on the intertubes with superb photos of these ghost towns and simply looking at photos is really eerie. Actually being there would be something else! Some towns did seem half dead - as you drove through them there were many many buildings un-lived in and businesses closed, but there were still people living there at the other end of town; these tended to be Indian towns in the main (in reservation areas) and it was sad to see the living that some people were only just scratching out.
It was reasonably warm when we left Vegas (~14-16C), but the further and higher towards the GC that we traveled, the colder it became.
First stop was the Hoover Dam - an incredible structure that was almost overshadowed (in my mind) by the interstate bridge which was ginormous. The concrete support arches for the bridge were as wide as a car is long and about as thick. The Dam itself however, lived up to expectations. It had looked tiny from the air, but was fully 800-odd feet high, with either end in a different timezone as the site chosen was more or less on the border of Nevada and Arizona, the latter being in the amusingly (to my mind) named 'Mountain time' zone. The overflows of the dam were gigantic. Hard to describe the size of them - perhaps twice the length of a football field and as deep as a 30+ storey building. Looking down that famous curved face of it was great experience. Aware that time was pressing (and the up until now completely neglected time zone meaning we effectively 'lost' an hour), we jumped in the monster and zoomed up the highway.
We arrived at the GC national park at about 5pm, just as the sun was starting to sink to get some pictures and check out the monstrous gash in the planet's surface, although we definitely thought that it was a shame that we hadn't managed to get there earlier - even 30 minutes would have been better; however on the plus side to see the shadows cast across the ravines and the sun setting behind us lent the visuals something that we otherwise maybe wouldn't have seen. It was really *really* cold up there, snow and ice everywhere, especially when the wind blew hard. It went right through you - rather like when we get the wind from Siberia coming across the UK.
The cost of getting into the park was $25, and lasted for 7 days - shame we only had about 45 minutes before the sun set. It was just getting dark as we left the rim and to drive to Flagstaff. The roads were a little icy in places, and in one place in particular, the ice covered the road for a metre or so. This was a pretty weird experience, considering that a mere 3-4 hours previously had been driving across a baking desert.
We were both flagging badly at this point and didn't arrive at Flagstaff until around 8.30 - part of the reason for misjudging the time so badly was aforesaid timezone issue as well as the large detour that we made to the south rim of the GC.
We stayed in an local hostel, which was fine for the night at $44 for a private room. Pretty much crashed out as soon as we arrived and fell asleep shortly afterwards around 10.30.
View Las Vegas to Flagstaff in a larger map
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