"Due to the lack of available water we have reduced water consumption to only essential operational use. All landscape irrigation has been reduced or eliminated... Please help us conserve water."You can barely see them in the photo, but there are a number of sprinklers behind the sign being used to keep the grass green (after all, green grass is "essential"), perhaps to rub it in the faces of the neighboring farmers with arid fields.
We stayed at a Motel 6 somewhere in between San Fran and Flagstaff that night. When we pulled in sometime after midnight, there was a police officer interviewing a woman, ostensibly about a crime that had just occurred. I checked into the motel by talking to a manager through bullet-proof glass, and I was repeatedly told (without asking) that the area was safe, but that I should make sure my car was locked. So it was obviously a classy area. Here's a view from our room in the morning:
As we made our way into Arizona, it was slightly toasty.
We arrived in Flagstaff, where we were supposed to play at a dance club called Club LEV8. If you're wondering whether or not we were confused by the dance club thing too, the answer is yes.
It turns out the club had changed hands a couple months ago, and it was now called the Mad Italian Club. The owner was an older man flanked by two young men in tracksuits, and he was donning a wife beater, a leather jacket, and a gold chain. He told me he wasn't aware of any acoustic show that night, but he invited me to come back for a DJ/rave night. The fact that his employees were hanging up newspaper on the windows made his offer enticing, but we passed.
We had booked the show through a couple students from the local college radio station, KJACK, and despite some shaky communication and a mysterious lack of promotion, we were assured the show was still happening when I sent out a wary e-mail just before leaving on tour. Needless to say, we were frustrated and a little upset when we arrived and there was no show, because we'd driven quite a ways (out of our way) to get there. I e-mailed one of the contacts, and then we saw Harry Potter while waiting for a response.
The Harry Potter experience was less than magical, mostly due to the movie theater sound being too quiet, which meant that people in the back of the theater could hear a coughing and possibly choking baby somewhere near the right aisle toward the end of the film. If I could've located the parents, I may have asked, "Is seeing the rest of Harry Potter 7 Part 2 really more important than attending to the health and well-being of your child?" On an unrelated note, young Severus Snape looked eerily like Jack White.
After the movie, we heard back from and ended up staying with one of the girls responsible for booking the show, strangely enough. The lack of a show was the proverbial elephant in the room that night, so we still don't know why things turned out the way they did. Either way, we ended up thoroughly enjoying ourselves while conversing with Ben, Taylor, Zach, and Ashley. They were some super-friendly and easy-to-get-along-with people.
The next afternoon, we went to Diablo Burger, which our hosts had claimed was home to "the best burgers" around. It didn't exactly stack up to Farren's in Champaign, which is one of our favorite burger places, but then again, I'm not sure the two places can even be compared. The presentation was awesome (as you can see below) and the burger was made of some fairly tasty (and lean) local meat, but it was cooked unevenly and it could've used a slightly bigger bun. The fries were something else altogether, though. At Diablo Burger, they fry them in olive oil and season them with rosemary, pepper, and salt, which makes for a uniquely delicious fry. Mmmmmm...
After some errands, we drove up to the Grand Canyon, where we started off by walking along the rim for a couple miles. It was cloudy on the two days we were there, so the colors didn't pop as much as they did when I went as a kid, but it was a mesmerizing sight nonetheless.
You're not supposed to approach the animals, but some animals have been fed by tourists so frequently that they've seemingly become domesticated.
When visiting the Grand Canyon, you need to eat salty snacks and stay hydrated!
After moseying along the rim, we hiked down the Bright Angel Trail for a little ways until it started getting dark.
On the shuttle back to the parking lot where we needed to pick up our car, we saw not one but three different elk. They were majestic. I'm convinced that we also almost saw an elk gore a photographer.
That night, we "camped" in our car at the Mather campgrounds. Once again, we were disturbed by the noises of an unhappy baby, but we slept fairly well.
On our way out of Grand Canyon National Park, we stopped at several viewpoints along the southeastern rim. Despite a bobcat crossing sign, we didn't see any bobcats. Disappointing.
Tricia then drove us by the Little Colorado River Gorge and through some impressively oppressive heat in the desert.
Your tax dollars at work:
Driving Music:
Patty Griffin - Impossible Dream
Paolo Nutini - These Streets
Gayngs - Relayted
Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Death Cab for Cutie - The Forbidden Love EP
Everlast - Whitey Ford Sings the Blues
Feist - Let It Die
Weezer - Pinkerton
Kings of Leon - Because of the Times
Mumford and Sons - Sigh No More
St. Vincent - Actor
Roy Gaines - I Got the T-Bone Walker Blues
Joe Pug - Nation of Heat EP
Margot & the Nuclear So and So's - Not Animal
The Black Keys - Magic Potion
Peter and the Wolf - Peter and the Wolf
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