chasing rabbits stateside

27th May (My brothers birthday - happy belated birthday David - I love ya)

I arrived at Flagstaff after a horrendous bus journey. I was exhausted almost to the point of tears, hungry, full of a cold, hayfever and feeling as sick as a dog. When I checked in at the hostel all I wanted to do was pass out on my bed. During my free breakfast (bless hostels that do that!) I got chatting to Phil and Dave, two British guys who had hire car. An hour later I was in their jeep and heading off to the Grand Canyon !!!!

The GC definately has the wow factor. For miles you see nothing at all and then all of a sudden there is a huge gash in the earth (call me think - many do - but until a couple of weeks ago I thought I would have to look up to see the GC !!!!). It's unreal, my brain couldn't quite take it in, it felt like I could reach out and I would find myself touchin a canvas painting. It is beyond huge, a mile deep, stripes of multi-coloured soils, foliage, glints of water here and there. Phil and I walked down part of the Bright Angel Trail into the canyon, we zig zagged back and forth for a couple of hours, in awe of the depth and just how small it made us feel. The amazing thing was the silence, it was eerie in a place so vast and ruggedly beautiful. We met up with Gary again and drove to various look out points trying to see as much as possible. The sun had started to set by this point and there was a stunning silvery haze over the jagged peaks. As we drove back the exhaustion kicked in again - tired but happy !

The Grand Canyon Internation Hostel is friendly, fun, clean and right in the middle of the town. I'm glad I'm here for four days. It's also close to the bars - which means it can get very very noisy at night, plus this is Memorial Day Weekend so it will go ballistic for the next couple of nights, but that is the only down side to this place, I highly recommend it and many nights its not like that. A train track cuts the town in two just up the road from the hostel, all hours of the day and night you can hear the train and its horn (do you call it horn on a train ?), that noise is actually kind of fun !

Saturday was a chill out day, I've sent postcards, written my journal, been shopping, chatted to the staff (crazy the lot of them, and huge fun - one of them is from Buxton and his brother owns the bike store on the high street in New Mills - for those not in the know, New Mills is my home town and Buxton is up the road !) and other visitors. I met a friendly guuy calle Bill in the post office, he bought me coffee and we chatted for an hour in the attractive Heritage Square, we talked healthcare, spirituality, hiking, hopefully I'm going to join him for a day trip before I leave.

You can tell I am doing my own thing food wise. I've decended to the level of bags of plain bagels ( no filling) for lunch, trail mix, pot noodles (or a version of) for dinner, eating enough free breakfast for two people in order to keep down the food bills ! I'm a true traveller now - I'll be dumpstering next !!!!

posted by KP @ 2:35 AM