On my U.S.A travel - Nature & People

After a month long planning on our travel, the day (30th May) came for us to pack our bags and experience it. I started the day with great excitement of traveling to some of my favorite places in U.S.A. We bid Au revoir to Dallas and boarded our flight to Phoenix in our trademark style. Inspite of our careful(?) planning, we ended up in a mad rush to the airport and managed to board the flight just on time. Once I got seated, I felt a great relief and immediately went to sleep (We were awake packing till 4a.m earlier in the morning). When I woke up, I saw miles & miles of desert below me. It was El Paso, New Mexico. In an hour's time, we reached Phoenix, Arizona.

In Phoenix, we picked up the rental car from Enterprise and headed towards Flagstaff (140 miles), our base station for visiting Grand Canyon. In the first few miles, there were lots of hugeee cacti on the road side. They were more than 30 feet tall & reasonably thick. Cacti slowly started to show up less and the road side was full of green shrubs. In sometime, the shrubs became trees and we were surrounded by pine trees. The outside temperature dropped too soon and it became cold. The landscape changed drastically in just 2 hrs - From a desert to a beautiful hill station.

We reached De Beau International Hostel where we had booked our lodging. We had a private room - The hostel had a very clean common kitchen & dining. We love to meet travelers going around the world and international hostels are the hub. As we approached our room, I met a Spaniard lady. While talking, she mentioned that she really admires black hair and adores wheatish complexion of Indians. She thinks Aishwarya Rai is the most beautiful women in the world and not Angelina Jolie as the Americans believe!

After relaxing for a while in our room, we decided to take a stroll along the streets. We enquired about the best cafe at the reception and we were guided to the near-by Macy's coffee house. We ordered a double shot cafe mocha. Jomy thoroughly enjoyed the coffee and I enjoyed the place.

GRAND CANYON

The next morning, we drove to Grand Canyon from Flagstaff. The moment I set my eye on the grand canyon, I was thrilled to see the mammoth canyon with huge cliffs and rocks. Minutes later, I found mile-high cliffs, gorgeous gorges and the vastness of the canyon. Later, I understood that the canyon is spread over 277 miles and the deepest point is about 6000 feet deep!

No photo, no painting, no imagination (is it only mine?) or all of these together can ever capture the picturesque nature that I saw here. You got to be here to feel the amazing work of the nature. To really enjoy the surpassing beauty this place has, I think it is just not sufficient to be here - Only tough hike and wild river rafting can guide to base of some of the most beautiful gorges. As I couldn't do any of these this time, I decided to watch the short documentary film "Grand Canyon : The Hidden Secrets" which took me through the nature's awesome beauty. This film gave a unique chance to explore the immense beauty at the canyon depths. It took me through a thrilling flight over the entire canyon stretch. The most interesting part was the river rafting - Exact replica of the wooden boat used by John Powell during his expedition in 1869 was used. John Powell was a one armed civil war veteran who delved into the canyon through the Colorado river.

After wandering for the whole day in the jumbo canyon, my legs were tired and needed rest. I rested at the brink of the canyon admiring the geological wonder of this stupendous place. I was looking at the rocks which could have been formed 1800 million years to 270 million years ago. I was overwhelmed by the ancientness of this place and sat there till the sun set.

Apart from seeing the canyon from the easily accessible view points, we also hiked to few places. It was a very quick and easy descend. While descending, we could see very beautiful plateaus, gorges and some wild flowers & cacti. We also saw the ice age fossils at Cedar Ridge.

On our way back to FlagStaff, we somehow ended up taking a different route. We weren't sure if the route was correct. The fuel in the car was less than quarter tank (we didn't know the fuel capacity of the newly rented car ;)). We did some rough calculations and were falling short by few miles to the nearest town. We were in the middle of Coconino national forest and there were no signs of any help. No 911 either since the phone battery had drained completely earlier. We were fully prepared for sleeping in the car in the middle of the forest :) I felt it was really interesting and was also worried at the same time. Knowing that nothing much can be done, left the worries behind and enjoyed the moment. Jomy started driving at an optimal speed to save petrol. But, the fuel tank warning alarm started to ring. Just at the nick of the time, we came across Shell gas station. Oh my god, it felt like a movie where all the sequences were rightly planned. Things fell in place at the right moments!

SHORT TIME AT SEDONA

After 2 days in Grand Canyon, we drove to Sedona, on our way back to Phoenix. We just had half a day in Sedona and went to information centre to find out the best places we could see within that time. The lady at the information centre mentioned about a promotional offer given by a resort - The offer was a free helicopter tour of Sedona. We were so excited hearing that. Wait! There was a catch! We needed to take the resort tour of 90mins. Again, we did a rough calculation and found that we didn't have sufficient time. Unwillingly, but with no choice, we said no to the tempting offer and moved on to see a chapel in Sedona.

The chapel was built in between two huge red rocks at a very good height. The place was just beautiful and the chapel was very peaceful. After relaxing for a while here, we drove towards Phoenix. On our way, I wanted to take pictures of the huge cactus. I was obsessed with them and we spent some considerable time there. When we reached Phoenix, we got delayed and missed our flight to Salt Lake City :) But, anyway, we got tickets in the next flight.

We reached Salt Lake City around 7:30p.m and hired a 2009 Nissan Murano for our 350 miles drive to Yellow Stone. It is a crossover with 3.6 litre (6 cylinder) engine with 265 bhp. Hurray!! I was so excited about driving this huge & powerful vehicle!

I am stopping here for now...Rest of the trip update in my next posting...

You can see photos of this trip at http://picasaweb.google.com/rshanthi/GrandCanyonSedona