Mini

I got into Phoenix at 20:30 last night, and was soon driving to my hotel. I'd been offered an upgrade to a 4x4 SUV, and when I asked "do you have anything smaller?", I gratefully accepted a Mini Cooper. Hence I'm probably driving the smallest car in Phoenix!

Although I woke briefly a couple of times, I managed to sleep until 05:00. After catching up on work for an hour, I had a typical poor American hotel breakfast. It was still early, so I did some more work before driving to pick up the tent, sleeping bag and mat that I'd arranged to hire. I also bought a big floppy hat to counter the desert sun, and a head torch - because I'd forgotten one! 

With high calorie groceries from a fuel station, I was soon heading through Phoenix and north towards Flagstaff. As the interstate climbed, the vegetation changed from dusty cactus to dusty pines. On a dual carriageway with almost everyone going beyond the speed limit, it wasn't a fun drive and, after almost four hours, I reached the Grand Canyon. 

It's a cliché that photos can't capture it, but it's true. With ultra wide-angle you capture some of the vastness, but you lose all of the detail, and any photo loses its incredible three-dimensionality. It's fractal in its detail: the more you look, the more there is to see. It's mesmerising. And the tiny proportion of the rim accessible to tourists is so large that it was quiet. As they acknowledge at the small geology museum, it's not the longest, deepest or widest canyon in the world, but definitely the grandest!

Although cloud had built up in the west, I took a shuttle bus beyond the "village" to Hopi Point, hoping for a sunset, then walked to the next point to get a change of angle. I gave up on a fine sunset lighting the canyon and took the bus back to my car. I'd booked site 308 at the Mather campgrounds, and compounded my minimalism by having the smallest tent I could see.

Tonight I'm sitting in the beer garden of the Yavapi Tavern, listening to a guy playing and singing folk songs to us, and wondering whether to have another pint of fine IPA. [In the end it was getting chilly and I went inside for a pint of respectable pumpkin porter.]

Thus I had a more exciting day than yesterday. I still took two Turf zones at the Grand Canyon, and now have the crown for holding the most zones in Arizona.

Tomorrow I descend into the canyon. How far, I don't know: maybe to the Colorado River. I'll play it by ear.