On to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon

Today I learned that no matter how much you love someone, being alone with someone for 3 days straight with no alone time can get a little intense--or should I say "tense"? Daniel and I drove for about 13 hours today in order to make it to our destination--Jacob Lake Inn at the North Rim of the Crand Canyon.

We left our campsite at around 7 in the morning and immediately made our first lucky mistake. We turned right instead of left when we left the camp site and headed toward a town called Leadville, an prominent gold mining town back in the day, where the residents today still look like the miners of yesterday. We stopped off and had an awesome breakfast at this little restaurant called the Golden Burro. The waitress asked where we were from and then proceeded--in a moment of unexpected, disarming honesty--to tell us how she had been trying to get the hell out of this town all her life and how it's a really beautiful town unless you live here.

We drove all day long, through the rest of Colorado, then through Utah. The soundtrack of this leg of the jouney was the album "Happiness" by the Weepies, especially the song, "You Can't Steal Happiness." All the driving, the fact that I hadn't changed my clothes in 2 days and was in bad need of a shower made for a fun Sonia, but that song made it a little better. What an album for this trip. Anyway, we drove through the Rockies and saw the most incredible views! Some of it reminded me a Scotland. The air is so clean, it almost makes you dizzy! Maybe the dizziness comes from being over 10,000 feet above sea level, who knows? At the very top, at the Continental Divide, I was making snowballs to throw at Daniel in a tank top! It's very strange to see snow and not be cold.

Just before we left CO, we stopped at a camping store to buy a few necessities I insisted on for future nights of camping: a lantern and a sleeping pad. I held my tongue the first night but I don't think I could continue holding it without these things.

Finally we got to Utah. The terrain changes drastically once you leave Colorado. The rock formations look like loads of sleeping elephants huddled together. Then it becomes all sandy-colored, red and brown mesas. I remember thinking that Utah was beautiful when we went through it on the way to California when I was 12. We had actually stopped at Bryce Canyon then. I was sad that we didn't have the time to stop there now, but we were in a race against time to make it to our inn.

So, we took turns driving a minimum of 80 mph through the desert. The desert is so vast I think it's difficult to patrol so you don't see any cops at all. The most interesting town we passed through was Kanab, just outside the AZ border. Kanab is the home of the Big Rock Candy Mountain that inspired Daniel to star singing the song of the same name he had learned in school as a kid. I couldn't stop laughing. Something about "soda streams" and "lemonade fountains." Apparently, this is heaven to the anonymous hobo author of the song.

We reached the Jacob Lake Inn in Jacob Lake, AZ about a half hour before the front desk closed. How to describe this place? First thing you notice is how GOOD it smells--fragrant cedar and pine. Instantly puts me in a great mood. As for how it looks? Think 1950's Niagara Falls or Starved Rock honeymoon destination-chic. All timber interior, curtains that have wildlife scenes, rugs hanging on the wall and a restaurant menu that offers an assortment of pies that you can have "a la mode." This sweet little place is nesteld in the Kaibab (pronounced KY-bab) National Forest at the intersection of 67 and 89A. As we were checking in, I noticed that there seemed to be a very diverse mix of people from bikers on road trips with buddies to families to young couples. Daniel bought me some delicious cookies. We made our way to our cabin (that has no TV--refreshing), took showers and hit the sack. Big day tomorrow.