Our day began with lattes in the warm morning sun at Starbucks in the town of Joshua Tree. Picking up a McDonalds breakfast on the way out to the hwy east we headed down the mountain road to the main hwy taking us east through the valley towards Arizona. Smoke from the fires further west hit us as we exited into the valley, turned east and it accompanied us most of the way to Blythe where we turned north towards Needles and the California/Arizona border. If you take this route be aware of the cut off to Hwy 40 heading east towards the Arizona border. It is not marked in advance and requires a 90 degree hairpin turn or you will end up either wrapped around a post or in a trailer junk yard. The Atlas handled it with her usual aplomb and we soon reached the Arizona border. Gas prices were a pleasant surprise once inside the state and we filled up at the first truck stop.
A 7 1/2 hour drive brought us to the Grand Canyon, a place that first piqued my interest while watching David Attenborough’s magnificent series Life on Earth. It seemed like the last hour on our final approach went on for ever through rangeland dotted with small trailers, tent camps and groups of grazing cattle – but finally we made it just as the late afternoon sun turned the canyon into a montage of gold, orange, red, blue and purple. Wow – just wow. I just stood at the viewpoint and tried to absorb it – while some sort of tik tok performance was going on behind me up on a large boulder ……. Interesting juxtaposition of the sublime and I am not sure what.
The Squire Holiday Inn is one of a group of hotels a few minutes outside the rim of the Grand Canyon. It is pet friendly with ample safe airing areas, comfortable good sized, clean rooms and I highly recommend it. The dog rooms are in separate hotel buildings with doors facing outwards. You can park right in front of your room like an old style motel. There is also a large dog crate in the room. Food in the bar is excellent – staff topnotch. We had a fun dinner of appies paired with a Kim Crawford Savignon Blanc. Our server and bartender were young men from Florida and Texas respectively who migrate between resorts and cruise ships working seasonal jobs in the service industry. Interesting conversation about that lifestyle – we were joined at times by other staff members. All in all the perfect choice if you are traveling with a dog. I have included photos of a neat table the hotel staff gave us showing the ages and names of the various layers of rocks in the canyon wall. The fact that we were looking at rocks laid down over a billion years ago was humbling.
We plan to rise early to see the dawn over the canyon. A beautiful crescent moon was floating in the sky tonight -hopefully it will greet us in the morning pre dawn above the canyon rim.
