June 28, 2008

Written by: Susan

We've traveled nearly 2000 miles now and covered 8 states. It started out with 5 people in a Prius. For those of you who don't know what a Toyota Prius looks like, let's just say it's not really made for 5 people to sit for any longer than say....oh about 5 minutes. Brian, unfortunately got the middle back seat since we were taking one of my girlfriends back to Flagstaff, Arizona (the closest town to the Grand Canyon). Not that any of the other seats were any better since we stuffed the car full of stuff. The only person sitting in luxury was the driver (me) but the drive is in charge of the whole car and should get a more comfy seat!

It was a six hour drive through the desert and none of us were looking forward to it. We made it though, cramped but in one piece. We dropped Jessica off, spent the night at a $50 Rodeway Inn on the side of I-40 and journeyed to the great Grand Canyon the next morning. **A tip for those traveling in the states. Hotels.com is a great site for lodging that gives pretty good rates for hotels and you can literally book until hours before you arrive. I've found that site to be much cheaper than calling the hotel directly or walking in. **

The Grand Canyon is always great to see (I'd been there 3 times since my girlfriend lives in Flagstaff) and always seems a bit surreal. I was surprised that the crowds weren't as heavy as I expected. Must be the whole gas issue that's going on right now here. Gas in the states is over $4 a gallon (about $1 a litre) which is still cheaper than most of the world we know, so it's been interesting to hear people debate the gas prices. It is the most expensive gas has ever been in the states though and I suppose if you're used to cheap gas, it totally sucks. What I do like about expensive gas it that it makes people start to think about alternative methods of transportation – which is long overdue – and people are starting to actually think about what kind of car they get and where they drive to instead of just filling up their huge SUV and driving hundreds of miles with just one person in it (a huge pet peeve of mine even before the gas hikes).

The Grand Canyon tour can take anywhere from several hours to days depending on what you want to do. I've never been a big fan of doing the rim-to-rim hike which is hiking from the south rim to the north rim. It seems that the only reason you would do that is for bragging rights and I'm too old for that. I'd much prefer to hike down Havasu Canyon (about a 10 mile hiike) to some beautiful waterfalls and spend a few days camping there instead. If you want to check out Havasu Canyon, google “Havasupai”. So we spent the day driving from the different vantage points around the Canyon, taking the obligatory pictures and than heading out to the four corners.

The Four corners is the only part of the United States where 4 states meet at their (duh) corners. The states are Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. We got there late (which we had planned) but what we had not planned was the fact that there were no hotels in the area. So we had to drive past the Four corners into Colorado and ended up staying at a nice casino just south of Cortez.

The next morning we headed out to check out these four corners and do the cheesy but fun “put our limbs in 4 different states at the same time” deal. Totally kitschy but a must do if you are road tripping the USA. Some guy had told us that it would be about an hour hike (which we weren't looking forward to in the hot dessert sun). So off we drove to the entrance, paid our $3 per person, and thought we were headed to the trailhead. We were pleasantly surprised to see that instead we drove right up to the four corners via New Mexico. We've become total lazy asses since getting back – gaining 10 pounds from eating bad but tasty but than it starts to not seem so tasty American food – so we were excited to waddle up to the four corners instead of hiking to it.

It was actually amazing to see how many people made this stop considering it's totally out of the way of anything and you really have to want to come here in order to make it happen. Brian's nephew wanted to go and that's how we found ourselves here. So what you actually do when you get there is they've (whoever they are) created a large bronze plaque with the names of all four states meeting in the corner. If you lay in the middle and stick your arms and legs out, you'll have each of your limbs in a different state. We, of course, all had to do this. The funniest people though was this retired couple from Australia  (think your grandparents) where the grandpa got down on his hands and knees and the grandma straddled him and yelled giddy-up! Only the Aussies would do that. Everybody got a good laugh and we were on our way.

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