Trip to Arizona

Last weekend [july (21,22) 2007], 3 of us, Anand, Sivanesh and I planned to goto Arizona and visit the Grand Canyon. The entire plan itenary was planned by Anand. He is a professional-photographer and so has plenty of liking for the sunset and sunrise colors. All tickets were booked one month in advance, courtesy Anand’s awesome planning. I took my flight from Seattle to Phoenix on Friday [20th] evening. The luck [or the lack of it] continued for me this time too. My flight was delayed for upto 3 hours, and I ended up at Phoenix around 11:55 PM instead of 8:30 PM. I was supposed to be the first one to reach Phoenix but my friends reached there much before me and even got the rental car booked. Since they had to do it before I arrived, it meant that I was not of one of the drivers of the car [the insurance won’t apply if someone other than the people signing the contract drives the car]. We were hoping that 2 drivers could somehow pull off the 15-16 hours of pending long drive in the next 2 days.

Around 12 AM Saturday early morning or midnight, we proceeded towards Monument Valley which was a good 5 hour drive from Phoenix airport. We got hold of a GPS for rent, and it seemed to be pretty accurate that used to make me amaze everytime it did something cool J I slept along the journey and Anand and Siva managed to bring it to Monument Valley. Along the drive, after 5 AM, we started taking lots of snaps for the unknown canyons found on the roads. These small towering sandstone colored mountains shone with very interesting colors during sunrise and I am pretty sure Anand would have taken some nice snaps of these while I clicked the pictures I used to do normally. The Arizona highways had a speed limit of 75 miles[ around 120 Km/hr] and we made most use of it. The freeways were through barren desert lands. There were huge stretches of desert land on either side of the roads with the occasional sandstone colored canyon\mountains, and they were such a new sight. I had never seen a desert before and when I woke up around 5:15 AM, it was a pleasant surprise looking at it.

See pic below.

We reached Monument Valley around 6 AM. [ See picture left- monument valley in the far background with the empty freeway surrounded by barren lands].This is supposed to be a valley having interesting formations of sandstones. They had names for all every formation :) There was a 17 mile drive inside the valley on a dirt track. We went on this for around 3 hours, took a lot of snaps, looked at the formations in awe, and then started towards the city of “Page”. Page is supposed to be in between Phoenix and Grand Canyon. It was mostly a resting area and was booming with hotels and that looked to be the main business there. Page also had a some scenic spots near it.

We went to the “antelope Canyon” near Page. [see pic below]. It was a on a

tour package and the entire road [there was not any] was on sand, and after a few struggles, the mini truck made it there. Antelope canyon is like a cave where two sandstone formations almost meet, and there is a narrow tunnel like stuff through which we can walk and go. The height of the tunnel supposedly increases with each flash flood where the sand is taken away. Snaps did not come out well inside the tunnel as it was pretty dark with a few rays of sunshine coming through some of the holes.

Then we went back to Page. From there, we drove on our rental car to a point called “Horse Shoe Bend” about 10 miles from Page. This was my favorite during the trip. [See pic left]The river Colorado takes a U turn across a deep canyon and the whole thing is a pretty sight. It was breath-taking to say the least and even novice photographers could take nice pics here. We then went to one of the most scenic lakes in the area. Lake Powell was surrounded by canyons on many sides and it was a pretty sight. Unfortunately it started raining, but still the beauty of the lake remained.

After visiting the lake, we came back to the hotel RodeWay Inn, had dinner at a Indian restaurant [they are everywhere :D], and then slept off. Next morning we had plans of reaching Grand canyon by 5 AM and so we had decided to start in our car by 3 AM.

As difficult as it looked, we managed to start by 3 AM sharp. It was such a nice achievement I felt. Siva started to drive the car and things were going fine till around 4 AM. Then the unexpected twist happened. As we were going on freewat US-163 around 60 miles [speed limit was 65 miles], a dog tried to commit suicide. It jumped at the wrong time right in front of the car, and the worst thing happened. We all got really upset, and continued slowly. The car was making funny noises and we were extremely worried. After driving slowly for 30 more minutes, we pulled over the shoulder of the road, called up the emergency number 911. After 15 mins, a police cop came in and took the report. He looked at the car and told that the engine fans had broken. So the engines wont get cooled down if we keep driving.

We gave the EnterPrise rental car a ring, and they asked us to return back the car at Phoenix airport which was a good 160 miles away. We thought the car would be ok to drive and started to go in the car. But every 2 miles, the engine would get overheated, and we would stop the car over the shoulder, open the front hood, and wait for 20-30 mins, and then start again. We realized that we would not go anywhere. So we called up the car agency again and they asked us to somehow reach a place which has an address so that they can send us a new car there and take the old one through a towing vehicle. We looked at the GPS and it pointed out that after 10 miles, there was a fuel station with an address. Since it was Sunday, none of the car’s branch nearby was open. Only the Phoenix branch was open, and so the car would arrive only from Phoenix. Since it was to come on a towing truck, it meant that it would take atleast 4-5 hrs. We told them the address of the nearest fuel station and we started moving towards it. The next 10m miles took around 2 hrs. Soon it was 9 AM. When we reached the spot mentioned by the GPS, it was fully empty and there was no sign of anhy life or any place there. We called up the number shown in GPS, and they told that it was another 11 miles… phew.. things were getting worse. We took another 1.5 hrs and managed to cover the remaining 11 miles. We took so many stops on the way. Time was slowly running and we were losing a lot of valuable time.


The place we reached was called “Tuba City” and we had subs there at subway. Then after repeatedly calling the truck driver’s boss, we synced up with the truck, and then around 12:45 PM, the new car came in the truck. The truck driver [Jack] gave the new car and left. We started around 1 PM towards the Grand Canyon. The drive to the great canyon was around 1.5 hrs, and around 3 PM we reached the Grand Canyon. The canyon was really superb. So many folds, so many views, such stunning rising of the sandstone layers, and the river Colorado flowing below at such a depth… [a pic of Grand canyon.. not the best pic]

The canyon had roads around it, and we took a partial drive around it, stopped at many view points, and took snaps. Around 5 Pm, we headed back towards Phoenix as Anand had a night flight. We reached Phoenix on time without any problems [with the occasional wrong lane problems] and the GPS did not falter much after this. Siva and I had a flight only next day morning. So we stayed in a hotel nearby. While trying to go back to the hotel from airport, even the GPS could not help. We made around 5-6 rounds of the entire airport and finally decided to use our own way to come out of airport. We then reached the hotel, and went back to airport and returned the car. We took the hotel shuttle back to hotel, slept for 4 hrs, got up at 4 AM and made our way to the airport to complete a memorable trip. All our return flights were on time and this was a good way to finish the trip.
Anto had come to the airport to pick me up and we then drove home.