What a treat to wake up in sunny sunny Phoenix and have a bowl of frosted flakes on the patio! I'm staring at my uncle's orange tree and thinking I might go pick one for the road today... :)
Arizona has been so nice, and the landscape is surprisingly so varied here. First off, the Grand Canyon was SOOO EPIC! And so HUGE! We stayed at the North Rim, and pulled in pretty late on Saturday night (and thus had to pitch our tent and cook our Maggi noodles/nutrella in the dark). (Oh, definite props to Aparna's Jet Boil and the invention of the headlamp!) But we decided to hang out at the Canyon all day Sunday, too, and we were able to finaggle a campsite for the second night, too, even though we had only reserved the first night in advance. So we got to drive up to about 5 different lookouts over the north rim, after we explored the cliffs close to camp, and the sights were breathtaking.
We had a fun time looking at all the rocks because they all sparkle and have little geodes all over. We even found some fossils of sea shells and different things up on one of the really high ledges of the rim...which I totally didn't expect, but it was just crazy to think about the transformation of the earth since those organisms lived...and to know that we were touching them however many millions of years later. My favorite fossil was this tiny perfect star that could have only been a few mm across, but it just stuck out of the sandstone as though someone had poured the stone, set it in there, and let it dry.
We drove/hiked up to the highest point on the canyon which was about 8800 ft in elevation, and ate cheese-its with sriracha sauce while admiring the view of the river and just the canyon itself. Aparna taught me a lot about the Colorado River and the impacts of it's development in just the last few generations. It's a pretty sad history.
We got to watch the sunset back at camp, but it got pretty cold pretty quickly, and that put a damper on the whole rest of the night. The highlight was driving out to the cliff and looking at the stars for a few mins. before the moon lit everything up and washed out the sky a bit. But we got to drive back to our site with the heat on full blast. :D
We pretty much packed up and hit the road for Phoenix yesterday morn. We chose the scenic route home and got to drive past the Vermillion Cliffs. There is a site up there, I think its on the Res, but I'm not sure, where these massive boulders have fallen from the cliffs, and the sandstone has eroded around them but not underneath a lot of them, so they sit on pedestals, basically. At some point, someone built dwellings around/between the boulders, and it was really cool to see the construction of the stone walls, the wooden outhouse, and just the nooks and shady places that would have provided shelter from the sun. They definitely did for us!
We also crossed the Navajo Bridge shortly thereafter, and walked out on it to see the Colorado. It was amazingly green, and the flow really was a slow crawl. It was interesting to see, but I reserve my opinions on whether I think it is pretty because I have no idea how it looked before all the development on the river changed all the hydrology to what it is today.
Driving through the reservation was also very humbling. I felt very unworthy, very over-privileged to be able to just drive through in the air-conditioned car, to know that I do not have to live every day in the heat as they do. I don't think I have processed the experience enough to be able to articulate what it was.
We did stop in Flagstaff for tacos and gas at Tacos los Altos. Then we drove into Phoenix through the beautiful Sedona, and Aparna dropped me off at my uncle's house. It's been good to see the fam again!
I guess that's all for now... Lovelovelove!
-Alia
Arizona has been so nice, and the landscape is surprisingly so varied here. First off, the Grand Canyon was SOOO EPIC! And so HUGE! We stayed at the North Rim, and pulled in pretty late on Saturday night (and thus had to pitch our tent and cook our Maggi noodles/nutrella in the dark). (Oh, definite props to Aparna's Jet Boil and the invention of the headlamp!) But we decided to hang out at the Canyon all day Sunday, too, and we were able to finaggle a campsite for the second night, too, even though we had only reserved the first night in advance. So we got to drive up to about 5 different lookouts over the north rim, after we explored the cliffs close to camp, and the sights were breathtaking.
We had a fun time looking at all the rocks because they all sparkle and have little geodes all over. We even found some fossils of sea shells and different things up on one of the really high ledges of the rim...which I totally didn't expect, but it was just crazy to think about the transformation of the earth since those organisms lived...and to know that we were touching them however many millions of years later. My favorite fossil was this tiny perfect star that could have only been a few mm across, but it just stuck out of the sandstone as though someone had poured the stone, set it in there, and let it dry.
We drove/hiked up to the highest point on the canyon which was about 8800 ft in elevation, and ate cheese-its with sriracha sauce while admiring the view of the river and just the canyon itself. Aparna taught me a lot about the Colorado River and the impacts of it's development in just the last few generations. It's a pretty sad history.
We got to watch the sunset back at camp, but it got pretty cold pretty quickly, and that put a damper on the whole rest of the night. The highlight was driving out to the cliff and looking at the stars for a few mins. before the moon lit everything up and washed out the sky a bit. But we got to drive back to our site with the heat on full blast. :D
We pretty much packed up and hit the road for Phoenix yesterday morn. We chose the scenic route home and got to drive past the Vermillion Cliffs. There is a site up there, I think its on the Res, but I'm not sure, where these massive boulders have fallen from the cliffs, and the sandstone has eroded around them but not underneath a lot of them, so they sit on pedestals, basically. At some point, someone built dwellings around/between the boulders, and it was really cool to see the construction of the stone walls, the wooden outhouse, and just the nooks and shady places that would have provided shelter from the sun. They definitely did for us!
We also crossed the Navajo Bridge shortly thereafter, and walked out on it to see the Colorado. It was amazingly green, and the flow really was a slow crawl. It was interesting to see, but I reserve my opinions on whether I think it is pretty because I have no idea how it looked before all the development on the river changed all the hydrology to what it is today.
Driving through the reservation was also very humbling. I felt very unworthy, very over-privileged to be able to just drive through in the air-conditioned car, to know that I do not have to live every day in the heat as they do. I don't think I have processed the experience enough to be able to articulate what it was.
We did stop in Flagstaff for tacos and gas at Tacos los Altos. Then we drove into Phoenix through the beautiful Sedona, and Aparna dropped me off at my uncle's house. It's been good to see the fam again!
I guess that's all for now... Lovelovelove!
-Alia
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