Sunrise over the Grand Canyon. Sunset over the Mojave
Desert.
That’s what we experienced on Saturday, March 8th. Steve had returned from San Antonio on Friday
night, so early on Saturday morning he and I arose and caught the early shuttle
bus to Yaki Point of the Grand Canyon.
We watched the sun rise over the eastern rim while the shadows melted
away within the canyon. It was cold - so
very cold! - but we were bundled up and had a Mexican blanket with us along
with hot tea. We were set! Not many tourists joined us, and we didn’t
have any kids with us, so it was almost as if we had a private showing of the
sunrise. Beautiful!
We headed back to the camper, woke up the kids, then hit the
road. We traveled along Interstate 40
most of the day, and that drive was interesting in and of itself!
We drove for a little while along Interstate 40 (which
largely follows the old path of Route 66) before we jumped off at Ash Fork to
follow Historic Route 66 until rejoining the interstate at Kingman. We stopped at the town of Seligman to enjoy
some of the more eclectic historical spots of Route 66. We told the kids that this was the town that
Radiator Springs from the movie “Cars” was modeled after. Not sure if that’s true or not, but it might
as well have been. This town was almost
exactly like Radiator Springs! Fun!
After we stopped at Seligman, we noticed that we were
driving through Native American territory, specifically Hualapai tribal
land. This area is a reservation, so it
was interesting to us to notice that the road signs didn’t show the usual US
signage that we are used to but rather were arrowhead-shaped and pointed to the
reservation roads. Also, we drove past
the Hualapai high school and a lot of Hualapai housing. Very interesting! I told the kids that we just traveled to
another nation and they didn’t even need passports!
Shortly afterwards, the sun was starting to set as we were
driving through the Mojave Desert. With
miles and miles of desert both ahead of us and behind us, we marveled over the beautiful
sunset in our foreground.
We ended our day by stopping for the night at Edwards AFB
which is the place where Chuck Yeager became the first person to break the
sound barrier in 1947.
Who knew that a routine day of driving could yield so many
interesting things?
