Canyon, Schmanyon
Monday, November 22, 2004
Posted by: Jenny
First of all – you Brians need to get your stuff together and start differentiating between yourselves for the rest of us. Which Brian are you?
And now, on to The Post. We pulled into Williams, Arizona, otherwise known as “The Gateway to the Grand Canyon,” around 8 pm and after a bit of driving around town we finally decided on the Royal American Inn – very luxurious, except for the fact that it had no phone. Once we settled in, I had the pleasure of a vegan chocolate cream cheese cupcake dessert thanks the priceless veg restaurant and natural food store guide provided by Sarah. Then we watched some tv and went to sleep.
Anyway, we were originally planning on spending today at the Grand Canyon, but we met some locals at breakfast who quickly confirmed the suspicions Zach and I had been harboring all along – the Grand Canyon really is just an overrated hole in the ground. So we decided to skip it and head south to Phoenix to get some sun. Boy do I love the desert.
Oh yeah, we also went through a town called Verde – here is a picture.
Just joshing you! We totally wanted to go to the Grand Canyon but got snowed out. Seriously – this is what the truck looked like when we went to bed.
The forecast for the road up to the canyon (about 60 miles each way) called for up to two feet of snow. We are just way too weenie for that nonsense, especially since I am WAY too weenie to drive the truck at all. The snowy / icy condition weather alert was scheduled for practically the entire length of I-40 until midday Monday, so we cut our losses and really did decide to head down to Phoenix and take the long way around the mountains, so as to avoid sudden death.
The intense change in weather over such a short distance is amazing. The desert ended up being really rainy, of all things, but Zach is always talking about how sunny LA is, so we kept moving. Like magic, we crossed over the border into California and the clouds parted and the rain ceased.
LA traffic eats boogers, but boy is that Pacific Ocean beautiful. We’re headed North on the Pacific Coast Highway and have stopped for the night in a tourist town called Ventura. Tomorrow we’ll walk on the beach.
California, I'm On My Way
Monday, November 22, 2004
Actually, we're already here, but the title just sounded good as I was typing it. Also, it's from a great, old song called "I Wanna Be a Cowboy In the Movies".
We spent the day driving up the Pacific coast, loving the scenery and stopping from time to time to check out anything that looked interesting. Several of the small towns had neat little shops and places where you can get down to the beach.
Santa Barbara is really cool, and has a great little waterfront touristy area and a long pier that we walked out onto to get some fish and chips. We also saw a van with hundreds of little statues and trinkets attached to it, completely covering everything but the windows. We should have taken a picture, but we were afraid we'd freak out the owner as he was actually working on some ornamental upgrades right there in the parking lot by the pier.
Tonight we stopped in a little town in the hills by the ocean called Cambria. This is a quaint, old-fashioned village with all sorts of weird stores and restaurants. We went out to dinner at a place called "Robin's" that was recommended to us by Sarah's book as well as the owner of the hotel. It's called the "Bluebird Inn", by the way, and it's just a cute as the rest of the town. No phone lines in the room, but they do have free high-speed internet in the lobby, which is what I'm using right now. I want to take the owner aside and tell him about the magic of wi-fi. I won't do it.
Tomorrow morning we're heading further up the Pacific Coast Highway, about 200 miles more, to Oakland to stay with Jenny's cousin. That's where we'll be until after Thanksgiving, then it's more LA, but this time we'll actually stop in town for a few days.
Miles Driven: 2360
Comments:
Brian said...
You really got me with the did we/didn't we want to go to the Grand Canyon twist - very FOX of you. See you tomorrow.
Keith said...
mmmmm... boogers.
Carligula said...
Don't worry, you two, I'm spending a week IN the canyon in march. I'll take plenty of pictures so you can see what you missed. I'm that kind of friend.
I would also like to mention that I, too, was fooled by your ruse.
Angela said...
mmmm.....vegan chocolate cream cheese cupcake