Claire and I tried to take this trip twice before, when the children were young, but something important happened both times, and we had to change our plans. After completing the trip this time, it would have been nice to take the kids; I'm sorry that they missed it. Also, we planned to drive from Columbus to Arizona, but we decided to fly to Phoenix and rent a car. We got an inexpensive round trip ticket: $174 for each of us. For that money, we got four or five days of sightseeing that we wouldn't have had if we drove. It is about 1,800 miles (2,800 km) from Columbus to Phoenix.
We flew into Phoenix on Saturday, September 7. The two things we noticed first were the intense heat and the Arizona landscape. The tem- perature was near 100 degrees F (38 C). And it was very dry: no humidity in the air. The landscape was very strange: almost like being on the moon: lots of rocks and red clay. The plants were cactus and some small grasses. Not many trees, not much green; very different from Ohio and almost all the other places that we traveled to. Claire said that Arizona was more foreign than England or France!
Now that we have been there on holiday, we decided that we would never want to live there. It was a wonderful place to visit, and we may go again on holiday, but that's the end!
First they took us across the frontier to Juarez, Mexico. It was colorful there, but it was very depressing. We could see that most people were poor, and there were a lot of beggars. Fortunately, we were only there for a few hours. Mexico is really like a third world country. Then we went to "Old Mesilla", a small village that has been restored to look like the original village settled by Spanish people. Of course there was lots of shopping. Then we went to White Sands National Park, a desert with sand as white as snow. We also visited Fort Bliss, a military installation where Rick used to work. And we visited a small desert nature museum.
Early the next morning, we went to Saguaro National Park. It is the site of many many large cactuses, the ones that look like they have arms. Those cactuses don't start to grow arms until they are about 75 years old, and they live to be over 200 years old. It was very beautiful there. We also went to a place called "The Desert Museum". It is actually a zoo with many desert plants and animals. We saw coyotes, foxes, prairie dogs, deer, porcupines, and mountain goats. It is actually one of the nicest zoos in the U.S. We stopped for a short trip to the San Xavier del Bac mission. It is the oldest continuously used Catholic Church in the U.S. We then drove to Sedona, one of the big attractions that we saw.
Sedona, Arizona is supposed to be one of the great centers for psychic "new age" experiences; there is supposed to be a large "vortex" there, whatever that is. We didn't see any ghosts, but we did see some nice scenery. The large red mountains are really nice. We also did some shopping, and we drove north through Oak Creek Canyon on our way to the Grand Canyon.
We arrived at the Grand Canyon on Saturday, September 14. It is the most spectacular natural thing I have ever seen. The large canyon is over 270 miles long, 10 miles wide, and over a mile deep in places. The for- mations inside the canyon are amazing: all shapes, sizes, and colors. It has been forming for about 280 million years. The areas that were formed in different geologic periods have different qualities. Claire and I just looked and looked for a long time. Even the best photographs don't show you how the canyon really looks: you must see it in person. It is amazing. I could talk for a long time about the Grand Canyon, but it is nothing like seeing it.
There were other interesting things at the Grand Canyon besides the scenery. Namely, the tourists. There were almost as many German speaking people as English speaking. And there were a lot of French. Many of them came on bus tours, and many had rental cars from California. In fact, we saw many foreign tourists in all the places we visited.
We then went to Canyon de Chelly and Monument Valley. Canyon de Chelly has Indian villages carved into the mountain (you may have seen this one, "White House", in some PSA competitions). Monument Valley is the area of really large rock formations in the otherwise flat landscape. There are large mesas (very large flat areas: "mesa" is Spanish for "table") and buttes, smaller flat areas, but still very tall. This area was featured in the movie "Thelma and Louise". This was probably the second most interesting area we saw after the Grand Canyon.
Next we went to Mesa Verde, a National Park that features more old Indian villages built into the mountains. There are stone houses there that were built around 1200 AD (very old by American standards!). The villages were interesting. There was a fire there early this year, and a large area had lots of burnt trees: very sad.
We drove over the mountains to Taos, New Mexico. We drove through snow, and there was about a centimeter of snow on the ground! We saw some more mission churches and Indian villages there. It is very difficult for the Indians: they are trying to keep their culture, but the children are wearing "Michael Jordan" and "Mickey Mouse" shirts. There is too much influence of television. The shopping was very nice in Taos. We went through some small towns with missions, and we arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Again, very nice shopping.
The last big attractions that we saw were the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. The Painted Desert has some really colorful rock for- mations. The Petrified Forest has trees that have been turned into rock by being under water for years and years.
We did lots of driving, but we saw the best of the American natural scenery. We could have spent more time at all of the places and we could have seen much more detail. But we decided that we wanted to see as many things as we could. And our main reason for going there was to see the Grand Canyon. We saw it, and it was great.