- 7:10 AM - Free food knows no age, sex or sect. We make way for the breakfast buffet to partake of the excellent spread. A couple of toasts, a bowl of cereal and a fruit juice later, we are all ready to take on Arizona. It is a bright sunny day as we plan to head west along I-40W and then take a detour north to visit the Grand Canyon.
- 7:45 AM - Wait, what?! Excessive snowfall has closed down the routes leading to the gorge. We kinda knew this but chose to keep it in the back of our minds with a faint glimmer that the darn weather would aid us. The weather does but the road condition advisories on the radio exhort us to either drive a 4 wheel drive or take snow chains. Since we have neither, we shrug off the disappointment and decide to reach Flagstaff, AZ. Wifey suggests we take a detour from Flagstaff 27 miles south to a place called Sedona. A google image search on the place pretty much makes up my mind.
- 10:30 AM - You may remember that Gallup is all snow. I've spent the last 30 minutes scraping off the ice off the windshield trying to get our ride ready. Now with it satisfactorily clean, we are off to Flagstaff!
- 11:00 AM - YAY! Arizona it is!! Called the Grand Canyon state, it has a star emitting rays as its symbol. We stop at the AZ welcome center to take snaps of the state symbol and some neat reddish rock-cave formations. It also says that the area is infested with poisonous snakes and creatures. Right at the welcome center!
- 12:45 PM - Wives are a different breed in themselves. Mine is so fascinated by the (Red) Indian native heritage on display (on the freeway billboards) that she urges me to make a stop at a creepy place atop a hill selling some sedimentary volcanic rock. If you've ever seen a horror-house, this has to be it. A lonely dilapidated place, it has eerie-looking crudely erected/seated mannequins. There is an abandoned school-bus, a creeper-riddled vintage convertible and some ostriches. OSTRICHES! On Sale or as a menu item or as a ride! We take snaps and leave, pronto.
- 3:00 PM - Aided by a 75 mile speed limit, we reach Flagstaff. Disappointment strikes again as signs on the freeway inform us that the road to Sedona is closed. Wifey says that it is the third time she has tried and and been denied an entry into Sedona. Maybe some shaman thinks she has not merited a visit. We top the tank at a whopping $2.89/gallon with some Shell gas. I'm hating this day.
- 3:30 PM - We lunch at a place called Village Inn thinking that we are immersing ourselves in the nativity. It isn't until later that we realize that it is a darn chain of restaurants! Bah, globalization.
- 5:30 PM - We stop at a place similar to Gallup called Kingman in AZ. This is just a gas stop though. Our ride gets some Love (gas) at $2.59/gallon. We have decided to push ourselves and drive to Bakersfield, CA. Wifey takes over the wheel.
- 5:30 PM - We have driven for an hour to enter California. Again, it's not a mistake. It's the time-zone magic at work granting us an extra hour. I sync up the car clock and our watches. At the CA border we are mandated to pass through a checkpost where a burly officer asks us if we have any vegetation in our car. We're puzzled but later realize that he meant marijuana - CA's largest cash crop. They plan to make it legal sometime soon. It would help us know when its time to move to CA :).
- 10:30 - My wife is a maniac! She has driven for 6 hours non-stop to arrive at Holiday Inn Express at Bakersfield. I am besides myself with my old friend, hunger, gnawing at me tummy. We gorge at Denny's. It serves breakfast 24/7. What foodies!
- 12:30 - Some mind-numbing TV shows later, its time to snooze.
We have driven for 13 hrs (including rest-stops) and covered approximately 700 miles today.
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