Kingman to Flagstaff

October the 4th, 2009 was to be a big day of railfanning. But Mother Nature had other ideas. Day dawned with a howling wind, gusting very much like a full on nor'wester does back home. And we all know how much fun they can be. Drove out to the Kingman Canyon, just outside of Kingman and a famous location for railfanning. Here the BNSF transcon splits into two and so there are two very different main lines through the small but pretty canyon here, plus a massive Santa Fe bridge. So with high hopes I set out, but as soon as I got out of the car I realised it wasn't going to be so easy. The wind was tunnelling down the canyon and it was getting hard to stand. The wind also muffled any train noises so it was impossible to tell if one was near or not. The sun was also on the uphill side which meant for the shots I wanted I'd have to clamber up through rattle snake country; not something I was prepared to do just yet.

Sun on wrong side, hence washed out l...

Flagstaff to Kingman

Plan for the 3rd was to head to Kingman, see a zoo on the way, stay the night, see some trains in the famous Kingman Canyon, then head back. So we headed off on the 3rd. Encountered a wildfire along the way at Williams; turns out a controlled burn off had got a little out of control, hundred or so homes evacuated, etc. Oops!

Smoke on the highway

After Williams we turned off the Interstate and onto the old Route 66. Yes that Route 66. The Mother Road and all that. Stopped in at Seligman and had a look around; wow, what a weird town! I'd head the Snow-Cap store there was a must visit, so stopped in for a malt. Quite a shop! We went in and found ourselves in a tiny little hallway where we could place our order, but what really struck me were the thousands of things stuck to every available surface.

  Outside the Snow-Cap store / Inside, little business cards and stickers everywhere.

I ordered...

Flagstaff

After our amazing day at the canyon on the 1st, we spent the 2nd a bit slower. We packed up the tent and scratched our head on what to do next. Had a bit of fun by hiring a pair of Banana Bikes from the campground office. Their Banana Bikes are sort of the BMX version of a recumbent bike; fixed gearing, pedals out the front, wheels in a tricycle formation, lean your body left or right to steer. Very fun to scoot about in, and with the fixed gearing they're very good leg exercise too! While scooting around I saw a herd of squirrels feeding under a bird feeder so I went back with my camera and got a few (50+) photos of them. There was 5 of them, all busy nibbling away on the bird seed, then the wind would blow up their tails and they'd all simultaneously sprint off in different directions towards the same tree, then they'd all bound a few feet up the tree and hang there trying to see what had spooked them. Just like cats do!

Shutter speed: 1/4000th of...

Grand Canyon!

What visit to Arizona would be complete without visiting the Grand Canyon? So that's what we set off to do on the 1st. Woke up, made a quick phone call (no problems this time luckily for the pay phone) and headed off on the Interstates for the Grand Canyon. Fairly uneventful hour and a half drive (Flagstaff and Grand Canyon are right next to each other on the map). Paid the $25 entry fee and in we went. Parked, walked through the forest and emerged on the rim walkway, and here was the view:

Of course it's nearly impossible to capture the scale of the place; heck it's nearly impossible to comprehend it in person! Here are some more shots…

 

So while you can stand at the edge and peer in, it's pretty hard to comprehend the 4000 ft drop or the 13 mile width. So we drove back down the road a bit and hopped into one of these:

Out of Africa Zoo

While browsing the brochures at KOA Ange came across one for a special Africa themed zoo not too far from us. So on the 30th we headed south on the Interstate system (actually very good here, almost a pleasure to drive) for an hour and a bit and soon arrived at the zoo. Actually ended up at the county court, but soon fixed that. Descended quite a few thousand feet off the Flagstaff plateau and we were quite definitely into desert here.

View from the top of the plateau, looking out over the Coconino National Forest towards southern Arizona.

Interesting zoo. The main attraction for Angela was the Tiger Splash event they run, where the keeps are in with the tigers as they get them to jump into pools and chase after pool toys! Yes the humans were in with the tigers, plural on the tigers too. How much interaction was there?

That much! I gather having your scalp licked by a tiger hurts; if there tong...

Mexican Hat to Flagstaff

So we'd ended up in Mexican Hat, Utah by accident, which meant today's main goal was to get back to Arizona where we were supposed to be headed. So we dug out our maps and colouring pencils and set about making a plan. The proprietor of the motel saw us and got chatting; she was quite jealous and wanted to be able to travel again. She suggested a few places we could try along the way that we might find interesting.

As soon as we stepped outside I had one of those moments; we'd arrived in the middle of the night to a tiny little backwater town in deepest darkest southern Utah, with little idea what was actually here. So when I stepped out and found myself surrounded by red cliffs and brilliant blue skies it was quite something. Just to add to the surrealism, something very black, very fast and very low screamed overhead in a giant lazy circle, no doubt off to some top secret military installation! Not the first time we've had flyovers either; seems to be something that happe...