Get your kicks on Route 66

What better way to start the next blog than sitting on another train heading up to the Copper Canyon in North West Mexico. Before I even tell you about Mexico I have to finish the last part of the US adventure off, another thing I have found and is a little bit worrying is the length of my nose hairs over the last month. I keep plucking them but the bastards keep growing back twice as fast and twice as long. Does this mean I’m getting old? Anyone else having problems like that? Is there anything I can buy? Anyway enough about my hairy problems.

I said goodbye to another dear travelling friend Don at the small mountain town of Flagstaff. I packed up my bags and headed to the very nice and plush Marriot Motel where I was meeting my next travelling companions……. Mum and Dad! Yep thats right people, Mum and Dad had flown over to come and see the Grand Canyon with me. It was great seeing them for the short while we were together. We went out for dinner and a few drinks on the first night and planned our route around the canyon. They had also bought my new Debit Card with them so I could stop using the credit card after I lost my old one in San Fran.

An early start the next day (I wasn’t used to getting up so early) and a good breakfast we headed of to our first destination called Monument Valley. Its feels like you are standing in a John Wayne movie with the back drops of the Monuments towering above you. Once you pay $5 to get in to the park you can drive down the bumpy track that takes you closer to the rock formations. The land is owned by the Navajo Indians so there is no rock climbing or base jumping much to Mum’s disappointment. There are a couple of indian families living in the park still in mud huts and teepees, its kinda cool in such a modern country there are people who stick their middle finger up to the government and still want to live there traditional ways.

Another early start (They do love to get up early) I don’t normally surface till 9am, by that time we had breakfast and was out of the door on our way to the canyon. They could tell I was tired as I kept falling asleep in the car. Waking up on the road that led us up to the grand canyon you start to get a feeling how deep it must be as the road we were on was climbing up at such a rate the car was struggling a bit. At the gates of the park we were greeted by a park warden who told us were to go and to see our first view of the canyon. No I know in most of my blogs I say ‘Oh my god the landscape was the best I have ever seen’ But really the grand canyon really deserves to be one of the great wonders of the world. It truly is breathtaking. The first glimpse of it from Signal Point your jaw drops and you really can’t get over the size of the place. Any photographs you have seen of the canyon just don’t do it justice, you have to witness it in real life to get the full appreciation of this gigantic place and how deep it is. I don’t think i’ll ever forget the view I saw on that day for the rest of my life. Superb!

After the rather stunning sunset over the canyon we finished off the night by introducing Mum and Dad to the American T-bone steak, we also got to try some rattle snake which I was very impressed that mum and dad tried it. It was ok, the problem I had with it was there was far to much\batter around the snake than snake its self so all it tasted off was chewy batter. Boo! Hopefully i’ll get some more crazy food to try in Mexico so I can report back on it, its all a bit to safe in the US……. or just made of fat. And they have the cheek to call British food rubbish.

The next day was the Smith Christmas outing, this time there was no turkey or Christmas Cake. Dads present to us was to fly over the Grand Canyon Airwolf style. Yep, we took a ride in a helicopter and again its one of those moments I think will stay with me for a long time (I’m having a fair few on this journey aren’t I?). Once you take off and fly over the centre of the canyon you really do get a size of scale. The chopper dips just below the surface of the canyon so you get a great view of the huge cliffs that seem to drop in to the abyss, the Colorado River seems like a stream from this height. What a way to see one of the 7th wonders of the world. Thanks Mum and Dad it was great present, i hope you enjoyed it as much as me :-)

In the afternoon I got a bang at the door, ‘Who could this be I wonder?’ Well I’ll be blowed its the first Ginger of Mersea Island ‘Matty H’ and his good friend Kealy. We have all travelled together a few times before so I knew it was going to be a laugh. The plan was to set off the following day and head along Route 66 to Albuquerque where we would spend Thanks Giving before heading down to El Paso so they could drop me off at the Mexican Boarder. They would then carry on down to Houston to meet up with Matty’s cousin Lister.

The following day we all woke up dead early, I’m talking so early the sun wasn’t up, but that was the point of this exercise as the whole lot of us bundled in to dads car and headed back to the canyon.
Watching the sun coming up over the canyon is another one of those moments as we join thousands of people sit on the side of the canyon in silence, the only thing that you can hear is the clicking of cameras. The sun hits the sides of the canyon like they are being set on fire making the sand stone light up in all manner of ways. What an awesome sight. Here is a little video I made of the sunrise. 31 mins squeezed down to 2 minutes, I also think the song is fitting for the view. Enjoy.

After Breakfast where we stole so many blueberry muffins for the long journey ahead I said my goodbyes to Mum and Dad as they were heading back to Phoenix for thanks giving with some people they met on the plane. We were on our way again leaving the Grand Canyon behind us in a cloud of dust to the next port of call, Monument Valley….. errrr I have just been here a couple of days ago so I don’t think I can be bothered to write about it again. After a few hours looking around we were on our way through Utah, I know at this point we had come off the historical Route 66 but we were on our way to the 4 corners of the USA, here you can stand on for states at once and is the only place in the US you can do this. A quick photo stop and we were back on the road again to….. New Mexico.

It was getting dark so we ended up hanging up our boots in a small and rather nice little town called Farmington. The night was spent eating Mexican food and drinking black russians in the Motel Bar. The weather was closing in and you could tell the cold front coming from the north was finally closing in on us as the wind was ice cold (Nipples that could cut glass cold) which I never really thought that it got to cold in New Mexico, how wrong was I? A chilly start and back on Route 66 on our way to one of the oldest towns in the US, Albuquerque. On the way we stopped at the ice cave and volcano which to be honest after the Grand Canyon wasn’t the most impressive thing in the world. Even the ice cave wasn’t iced over, just a rather shallow pond in a cave. Oh well you can’t win them all. A couple of hours later we cruised in to Albuquerque. The town is split in to two parts, Old town and Downtown. Our Motel was situated in old town which wasn’t that cleaver as we later found out all the action was downtown and that was about a 20 min walk away. Anyway being the eve of Thanks Giving something had to be open, after another bloody Mexican meal we headed to downtown to catch the party. Unforcently Kealy came down with a cold or something so she stayed behind in bed. Now you don’t really hear about Albuquerque as being a hub for new music and talent but my word it has a great alternative scene. We started the night watching a band who were like a mix of The Human League and Joy Division. At the bar a lonely looking fella started up a conversation with us, A strange guy called Dennis who had something to do with the American hostel association and was visiting his mother for thanks giving though he was spending thanks giving at the hostel so we found him a tad odd, also

1. He looked like the dad out of Family Guy
2. He loved the church and hated all the ‘The Gays’ in El Paso. One of those bible thumpers.
3. He was hanging around with us and knew all the places where the kids drank in town.
But hats off to him as he did show us a wicked ‘Hipster’ bar which we would never come across so we spent the night hanging out there dancing to B-boy music. A couple of random things did happen in the bar, firstly a girl walked couldn’t get passed me as I was in her way.
‘Sorry’ I said.
‘You’re English, i studied in England last year’
‘Where abouts did you go?’
Ready, your love this………. ‘I went to Essex Uni, do you know it?’
What are the chances in that? If people reading this don’t know why its so strange its because Essex Uni is in the town I grow up in.
The other random thing to happen was the bar being closed down 1 hour early. Earlier on in the night the MC told us to have a great night and that he didn’t want any fighting and leave the attitude at the door. Cut to 1am and all hell breaks out on stages, I’m not sure what happened but the MC was punching some dude, bodies falling off the stage, needles on the record skipping and that was it. The bar manager shut down the bar. So much for a happy night Mr MC. Still it was a bit of a comedy punch up, I asked a girl standing next to me if this happens often here and she replied ‘Sometimes, the last thing that happened was two people got shot in their car outside the bar’. Right time to go I think. Saying that it was a great bar and i would happily go back there and spend more money drinking vodkas. One thing about the bar culture in the US is that they always look at me funny when i ask for a Vodka and Coke. Nobody drinks it over there, Weirdoes.

Happy Thanks Giving….. We had nowhere to go, last night was meant for us to use all our English charms to get us invited to someone’s Thanks Giving Party but it just didn’t happen. Kealy was still sick so Matty and I went out to find something to do and eat. Driving back downtown I remembered Dennis saying something about a restaurant where everyone goes on Thanks Giving, if we could only find……. we found it, it was called Frontier and it was packed, people were queuing up to by there burritos and other mexican delights. It was a great find and we stuffed ourselves silly.
In the night Kealy was feeling better so we decided to go to the movies as all week ‘Hitman’ had been trailing on TV and it looked pretty good. Oh dear it was one of the worse movies i have seen in a long time, the plot was all over the place and didn’t make any sense. Rubbish.

The last leg of the trip was the sprint down to the US/Mexican boarder to the city of El Paso. Before we got there we had one final destination to go too…… Yes thats right, unleash the geek inside me……. Another place i really wanted to see when I was in America was The Very Large Array. This massive Radio Telescope was so interesting to look around and even Kealy being a girl found it interesting. See science can be sexy! The coolest thing is when all 28 dishes move at once. There is plans to build another Array which will be 1000 more times powerful and should be online in 2012.

We get to El Paso just after dark and decided to go out for some drinks as it was my last night in the US. Oh dear, someone forgot there ID didn’t they Matthew so we had to call it an early night. Never mind you can’t win them all. It was probably best as tomorrow I was heading in to the unknown…… My next country on the trip…..Mexico. I hadn’t even planned to visit it on this world trip so i knew nothing about it. FInd out in the next blog how I get on.

So thats it, one and a half months in America. Again, another place on this trip i wasn’t really intending to go to but to be quite honest i’ve bloody well enjoyed every minute of this country and I would like to thank all the following people for making my time in the US a unforgettable journey.

Katie & friends in NYC, i’ll be back to bug you all again.
Claire & Mya in Chicago.
Alex & Andi in Denver.
Lee.
All the crew from the Pacific Trade Wind Hostel in San Fran.
Mum & Dad.
Matty & Kealy
Everitt from the train.
and of course my wonderful dear friend Virginia.

Heres the final USA list, i know you have all been waiting to see what came out on top
1. Jerry Springer, nothing could top him, not even the canyon.
2. Grand Canyon… beaten by Jerry Springer?
3. New York (Best City in this world? I think so)
4. All the national parks i visited, i really can’t choose, they were all unique in there own beautiful way.
5. Halloween, US style.

A special award goes to Denver for having the most crack heads in one spot at anyone time. Well done.

One Response to “Get your kicks on Route 66”

1. Jen says:

   December 7, 2007 at 5:53 pm

   Sam when you get back I’m going to teach you the difference between bought and brought. I’ve been meaning to do it for a long time. We can do comedy cocks in the lesson though so it is fun and to keep you concentrating.
   x