Day 1: Pasadena to Flagstaff

In general I feel that blogs are somewhat narcissistic: i.e. I am writing about myself for the world to see! Before I delve into narcissism territory I would like to share a very useful piece of information: Should you ever find yourself hauling a 9 year old, colossally uncomfortable double mattress down a flight of stairs and down a long driveway to a dumpster at 4am in your pjs please remember this: Mattresses can neither be pulled nor dragged. I would recommend rolling the mattress down the driveway on its short sides, like a cartwheel.

That's sort of how the start of my drive across country started. I am still not sleeping (perhaps due to said colossally uncomfortable mattress - I will test this theory tonight!) so I was showered, had the car packed and cleaned out the last stuff from my apartment by 4:50am. In the weeks leading up to the trip several people asked me how I'd feel when leaving Pasadena. To be honest I felt a little misty eyed but it might have had something to do with the song that was playing on the radio when I left (The Frey? How to Save a Life? or something similar). It passed once I got on the freeway and wondered as I always do: where the hell was everyone else going at 5am?!?! There were a lot of cars until I got on the 40 but we moved right along.

On the 40 there were no cars, like totally empty roads for me to speed down so I had lots of time to think about what the hell I am doing. I have to say there is something incredibly liberating about being unemployed (as of 5 days ago), homeless (as of 14 hours ago) and single (as of 20 hours ago) and having the entire open road ahead of me. Most of my thinking was looking forward to whatever is on the horizon next rather than what I've left behind. Although I did do a fair share of thinking of all the goodbyes I said, particularly the ones from this weekend and from yesterday afternoon. When I crossed over the Arizona border I did a lot of woo hoo-ing and actually became kind of hysterical over my sheer excitement of everything. At the moment I started bawling I was listening to Coldplay's Viva La Vida and hearing the specific lyrics "If I ruled the world . . ." so maybe I got caught up in the song? Or maybe I am nuts?

I drive with a lead foot and rather than risk telling how long it actually took to get to the turn off for the Grand Canyon I'll just say I made good time and got there earlier than expected.

The Grand Canyon was so so so so awesome!!!!! This was my second time there. The first was on the way to Sedona and I think I was only there about an hour. This time I spent 4 hours hiking around and loving every minute of it!!! I know the Grand Canyon is essentially a huge ditch but I find it amazing. I could literally sit on one of the mesas all day staring at it. The weather kind of got wild as soon as I got there. About 50 fat rain drops fell when I was waiting for the shuttle in Tusayan and there was a combination of storm clouds and big huge white puffy clouds. It kind of rained as I walked along the paved path toward the South Kaibab Trailhead but stopped as soon as I got on the dirt trail. As soon as I got on the shuttle to get back into down it starting pouring, thundering and lightening! It was so cool and so amazing but it would have totally freaked me out to camp/hike down in the canyon in a storm!

Since my last visit to the Grand Canyon I have been obsessed with "getting intimate" with the Canyon and hiking down to the river. It's supposed to be amazing but I'd have to learn to enjoy (or at least pretend to enjoy) camping so I'm not quite ready to make the plunge. There are signs all over warning death and fatal illnesses if you attempt to get down to the river and back in one day. I climbed down the South Kaibab Trail for about 45 minutes - it's suggested that you allot 1/3 time to descent and 2/3 time to ascend and I still had to hike back to the see the rest of the rim overlooks. The hike down was so amazing! I could have easily taken several hours to get to the point I got to because each step show a different view of a canyon or a rock or a tree or a plant or whatever. I love being outside and seeing nature in action - it's probably as close to religion as I will ever get. And after sitting in the car all morning getting out there and getting moving was just what I needed.

I love going to national parks to see all the visitors. I think it's so cool that people come from all over the world to see places like the Grand Canyon. Lots of French and German tourists, including one women who was descending into the canyon wearing heels and a very tight skirt shouting at her partner in Italian! Lots of people with thick southern accents that I couldn't understand - the rest of my trip should be interesting!

Total miles for today: 552.9