This post may not be among the most fascinating or deep of my writings, but if you’re interested in some details about the rest of my journey out to Grand Canyon National Park, read on.
Day 2 was a pretty uneventful driving day. From Salina, KS I took Interstate 70 just a short ways due west, then got off and angled southwest through Kansas for a good chunk of the day, first on KS 156 and then on US 56. Toward the southwest corner of the state, in the small town of Hugoton, I stopped at a nice little city park for a picnic lunch. Then onward virtually to the very corner of KS, and across the line into the OK panhandle. Naturally, the second I crossed the state line, I burst into song: “Oooooooooooook-lahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plain!” Etc. I crossed the said panhandle, still heading southwest and passing within a stone’s throw of Texas, and entered New Mexico, thinking “it’s official—I’m in the southwest” even though everything initially looked just as boring as Kansas (and the little bit of OK that I saw) had. (Entering NM also meant that I had now, officially, been to half the states in the US! Or technically, one more than half…but I don’t really count Georgia, since all I ever saw of it was the inside of the Atlanta airport.) But just when I was starting to wonder if there was anything interesting about New Mexico, I pulled into Springer, where I would get on I-25 (finally back to interstate driving!), and the scenery suddenly started to get interesting. A few miles down I-25 toward Santa Fe, I was sold on New Mexico; mountainous and beautiful! And as previously mentioned, somewhere along the way I saw a roadrunner. It might have been as I was coming into Springer, but I can’t recall for sure. It scooted adorably across the road in front of me right after I’d made a turn from one street or road to another, if memory serves. Too bad I had the windows rolled up, so I couldn’t hear the “meep meep” sound that I have no doubt it made.
After dining “in style” (fast food) in Santa Fe, I jumped onto NM 14 south—the “Turquoise Trail”—and drove through more extremely cool scenery (I stopped once for a couple pictures, but they don’t really do it justice).
I finally reached my Day 2 destination (the Turquoise Trail Campground) a few miles before highway 14 runs into I-40, just east of Albuquerque. I got there a bit later than expected, but still before the campground office closed for the day (and well before dark). The woman in the office had been worried that I wouldn’t arrive in time, and had even tried to call me about 15 minutes before I rolled in. She was friendly and efficient and helpful, all in stark contrast to the staff at the hotel in Salina the previous night. And the campground, it turned out, even had wifi! I put up the tent, did some writing and Facebook posting and relaxing and snacking, and settled in for my first camping night of the trip.
Day 3 was a much shorter driving day than either of the previous two, although I was tired enough of driving by now that it didn’t really feel that much shorter. 🙂 I took I-40 west through Albuquerque—where I neither made a wrong turn, nor broke bad, nor called Saul—and onward, eventually into Arizona, past Flagstaff, through galling road construction delays just when I was feeling like I was finally “almost there,” and then north on AZ 40 to Grand Canyon National Park. Arrival!
To my dismay, though, one of the first things that I learned upon arrival (actually, I’d been foreseeing and fearing it all day, based on signs and conditions elsewhere) was that, due to drought conditions and high fire danger, there was a total ban on campfires in the park. What!? As anyone who has ever camped with me knows, cooking meals over a fire is pretty much my definition of what it means to go camping. (I usually make a point of being very snooty about it, too.) Also, since I lacked any other means of cooking, how was I going to eat during my time here? Well, I supposed that I’d have to see about buying (or renting) some kind of gas-burning camp stove. (Curmudgeonly grunt.) I actually got past my initial disappointment over this situation fairly quickly, though. I’d miss having campfires, but whatever. I was finally here! I got to my site, got set up, and then hopped back in the car to head over to the general store and visitor center, with three goals: 1. Solve the “how to cook meals” problem; 2. Get my first glimpse of the canyon; 3. Acquire info about where to hike and stuff, so I could start planning for the next day. I ended up renting a teeny little gas burner that I could set under my beloved campfire grill and pretend was a campfire. Checked out the canyon (which is quite big, in case anyone is wondering), putzed around figuring out what to do the next day, then headed back to my site to cook some brats (albeit not over a real campfire), eat them, do some reading and relaxing, and eventually turn in for the night, looking forward to the first non-road day of my trip in the morning!
