September 10th – September 16th 2012
Our next destination (about 90% chance):
Stanford,
California (starting November 26th).
9-12-2012
We took quick drive to the trail head of Old Crater Cave’s hike. It is quite nice to live in
small city, nothing is too far. Another nice day (we really did not have bad
weather days), there were some days that it was raining, but it did not last.
We parked the car and started to walk. It was supposed to be relatively easy
hike with just about 400 feet elevation gain. The top of the hill was covered
with old craters (once upon a time “houses”).
Indeed, it was relatively easy hike. The views were
different and incredible. The nature was green and pretty (so much for desert).
So, nothing to complain about.
We hiked on the top, looked around, climbed into the caves
(more like bigger holes in the ground), and dissented on the other side of the
hill. After that, we walked around to get back to the parking lot.
Our next destination was Grand Falls (as well called Chocolate Falls). We drove from town, there were
some houses, but they were getting scarce. At some point, there was no
civilization at all, just nice country. And nice drive, until we left paved
road and turned onto Indian road nr. 70. Dirt road.
Really bad road, a lot of holes and really bumpy. And … we
had almost 10 miles to get to the falls. I was wandering what the hell we got
ourselves into. But we kept going. There was maybe 15 houses along the way (in
distance). We were on the land
of Navajos (I think).
Surprisingly, we saw some cows in desert.
Driving and suffering. In about 9 miles, we saw the car
parked on the flat surface. We pulled next to it, rolled the window down and
they asked about the falls (they were foreigners). We did not know. They left,
we stepped off the car and walked around. I walked onto the hill hoping to see
something. There was dirty (red soil) river, water. And in sight drop, or
something. We walked there and found the falls (and saw why they would be
chocolate). It was amazing view. Really strange, all around was flat landscape
with pretty much nothing. And then you saw small dirty river, which got much
wider and then created falls. There was not much water and we could see two
smaller falls. Still, it was more then unreal view.
We did enjoy the views and incredible work of nature. We
even saw the guy from the other car, he appeared on the top of hill (running),
took some pictures and run away. Weird. We walked slowly back, looking on the
nature’s wonder. The river was quite small, there was slab of concrete as a
road. Luckily, we did not have to drive further. And our filthy car.
And we had to go back, driving on that horrible road. With
nice views. Trade offs.
9-13-2012
Again, it took longer than planned to leave the house (still
getting use to it). We drove through Flagstaff
and headed towards Grand Canyon. We were
hoping, that going there on Thursday will make it less crowded. Really nice
drive, again.
It is about hour and half (or 80 miles) from Flagstaff on nice paved
road. On the intersection (one road from Flagstaff,
one road from Williams), there was gas station and other establishment. (Really
horrible view). We passed the entrance (5 stations), that looked like border
crossing. And then got into the Village. The civilization, shopping and other.
So sad …
We parked (it was pretty busy), walked through visitor’s
center ground towards the canyon. And we saw it. (With so many people around.)
It was incredible, amazing and unreal. Perhaps, it was too big to enjoy it, to
absorb it and realize what you are looking at.
We walked around a bit, visited the center and were not
really happy about so many people around. We moved towards the beginning of
Hermit’s road (no driving there). Possibility of hike (7 miles one way) or
park’s bus. We took bus (again full of people) towards Hermit’s rest.
We got off on different points, enjoyed the views (there is
about 8 stops, bus runs every 10-15 minutes). We slowly made our way to
Hermit’s rest. We even saw a bit of river (dirty one).
Smaller building, really cramped (toilets, water, sidewalk),
the trail to the bottom of the canyon. It was interesting, but …
We took the bus again, we wanted to get off about 1.8 miles
from the beginning and walk. So we did. Hoping for some peaceful (and less
crowded) time. At that point, we saw some wildlife.
And this is us walking and enjoying the rim of the canyon:
We got back to the starting point, J. had phone call about
possibility of Stanford job. We wonder through the lodge / settlement. It was
strange, there were some art studios and shops on the rim (ehmmm…), we wandered
through the lodge, next to the cabins (strange).
We drove through the village (there was school), and headed
towards the east entrance of the park. We stopped few times on the “vistas”,
but our final stop was Desert view. There was Watchtower (now housing gift
shop). We walked up and looked around. There were some interesting views.
We were getting tired. We as well discovered, that we had
about 80 miles to go (I thought it was less). We hit the road and started
driving. Not a bad drive.
9-14-2012
Relaxing day. We were going to grab breakfast in town and
then visit Arboretum. J. received phone call from Palo Alto / Stanford. They called her for
interview at 8.25 am (she agreed to be submitted for job yesterday around 3.00
pm). It was incredible turnaround time. She spent almost an hour on the phone
talking to the manager from Stanford. It looked promising (she said, she was
interested in J.). Already from car, J. called her recruiter and informed her
about interview. And talked about possible details.
We had quite bad breakfast. Where is our standard from Michigan???
About three miles of dirt road, then we saw Arboretum sign,
hiding in the forest.
It was interesting and different. I guess in this area, the
landscape and what can grow is quite different. It was somewhat cold. We did
enjoy the arboretum, the landscape, and some flowers.
Flower from Arboretum Flagstaff:
There was again this sign, informing us about snowfall in Flagstaff. More than Denver, for example.
And some wildlife (sort of);
We drove home, I washed the car, J. accepted the job from
Stanford, and we had rest day off. J. got a bit emotional, so it made for a bit
strange day. There are some details of contract and other “monkey business”,
but very likely, at the end of November, we will be in California.
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