Arizona

Arizona Trail

Once in Arizona we headed through the desert towards Tusayan and the Grand Canyon. Having stayed in Tusayan on the previous trip we’d booked in advance to stay there again, knowing that it’s only ten minutes or so from the Canyon.

Arriving in Tusayan on the evening of the 7th August and realising it was nearly sunset, we grabbed our cameras and sped towards the Canyon rim. Unfortunately (well, no, it wasn’t fortune it was laziness; we walked down the path instead of running even though the sun was blatantly going down) the sun had just about gone by the time we reached the rim, ruining our chances to take some clichéd postcard shots of a Grand Canyon sunset.

The next day (everyone else got up and went to watch the sun rise in the Canyon. I however, being on holiday, refused to get up at 4.45am) we had planned to walk down into the Canyon, however the weather was terrible and the path we had in mind to descend was closed due to storm damage, so we ended up just driving along the rim and peeking over some of the viewing spots :(

We continued on from the Canyon and took a detour from the road to Flagstaff to see the Wupatki National Monument and Sunset Crater National Monument.

The Wupatki thing was a bit of a let down, it’s a few walls which the National Park Service have cemented together to stop them falling over. There was nobody else there though and after following all the other sheep along the Canyon rim all morning, it was nice to stand in the middle of Arizona and not be able to see another soul.

Sunset Crater more than made up for the wall remains, and was excellent. The entire area around the crater is made up of volcanic debris and is a mixture of black and red cinders. It was raining, but we parked the whip and set off following the signs for the ‘long’ walk (being America is was about a mile, if that) which let us walk around the base of the crater. The rain had soaked the cinders and the place looked fantastic, and again we practically had the place to ourselves. Along with the airboat ride (we’ll get to that in a bit), this was my favourite part of the holiday.

That evening we drove on to Flagstaff where we had a lovely meal and spent the night.

The Grand Canyon

Sunset Crater National Monument