Turning the Page

You may have noticed a lag in posts recently. This post is a step back to before San Diego to explain that whole situation.  We were delayed in our trip (and in blog posting) due to an unfortunate incident in the desert on the way to the Grand Canyon. We had been driving from Santa Fe with a quick stop in Durango, Colorado, down to Four Corners, and all the way through Monument Valley before we got to magnificent, world-famous Page, Arizona. When we first saw Page, we were actually overjoyed to finally be in civilization after so many hours in barren Arizona Indian reservations. Little did we know that we would soon come to see Page not as a glittering city on a hill, but as the fiery, soul-sucking hellscape that it really was.

After camping that night, we set off for the Grand Canyon along the route suggested by our trusty GPS. We hit a portion of the highway that was unexpectedly closed due to landslide, so we flagged down a passing Navajo to ask for directions to an alternate route. He unconfidently told us that he thought there was some sort of dirt road that went around the closed portion of the road, so we took his directions and completely went for it. We were alright for a good ways until a patch of very loose sand, where we decided to try and forge through to keep from getting stuck. The car bucked and jumped all the way through the sand, and continued to do so after we got onto flat road. We immediately suspected transmission problems, and hoped it was literally anything else. We limped back into town in first gear, which took about an hour, and headed to a mechanic, who gave us the bad news: our “sun shell(???)” was broken. In addition to the fact that the transmission needed to be replaced, the shop was closed on weekends, so we were stuck in Page for at least 4 (which later turned into 5) days.

Page is probably my least favorite place in the world. If I were going to compare it to something, which is in fact what I am going to do, I would say it is much like a parasite that lives inside a rat which in turn lives in the filthiest, most disgusting dumpster in the dirtiest, most vile place imaginable. It’s oppressively hot there, and there is very close to nothing at all to do, especially without a car. The local bar/bowling alley had a few cool people to talk to, but that only goes so far. We saw Man of Steel two days in a row. We probably gave Taco Bell their best week since they introduced the Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Taco. We played so much ball-in-a-cup that I increased my record for consecutive cups to 42 (shout out to Carly for gifting us that second BIAC). Page probably isn’t the worst place in the world, but it doesn’t have a lot going for it.

On our third day in Page, we decided to walk down to Lake Powell, which looked like it was probably a twenty or so minute walk. We walked through pure desert landscape for about an hour and a half before getting to a cliff that was still a ways from the lake. We didn’t bring any water with us, so the walk back was the most grueling experience of my life. I’m pretty sure I almost died. The water we got at the Denny’s on the edge of town was the sweetest, coldest, most refreshing substance I’ve ever tasted.

Our fifth day in Page was a good day, mostly because we got to leave. The car was the most comfortable that it had ever been after so much camping and having to walk everywhere. Driving again was euphoric, especially accompanied by the beautiful, underappreciated feeling of not being in Page.

Since we had spent so much unexpected time in Page, we had to cut a lot of nights that we had planned to spend elsewhere and reroute more directly to San Diego. As a result we decided to do a speed-tour of the Southwest, first stopping at the breathtaking North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We spent about an hour there hiking around and taking pictures before getting back on the road to Las Vegas. We got into Vegas around 12:30 AM (where we quickly ran into our old classmate Katy Anderson) and did maybe the fastest Vegas run that has ever happened, getting out by 2 with everyone solidly in the black. After the greatest showing of self-control ever seen by man or beast, we left on the way to San Diego, finally arriving at Ned’s place at around 7 AM, pretty much back on schedule. Though it would have been nice to have spent all the time we originally wanted to in the Southwest, it was definitely a uniquely fun experience to speed through and just get a small taste of what the region had to offer, kind of like an even more distilled version of the trip as a whole.  -J