Sunday July 14

In Search of the Lost Day

With fear and trepidation, I climbed into the cab of the truck I'd rented the day before and started the engine. Corey and I had already "loaded" it with our luggage, pillows and souvenirs; now I needed her to guide me out of the parking space(s) and onto the road. I would also need her eyes the entire trip, as I could not see to the right very well when making turns. This day turned into an adventure inside an adventure.

The brakes on this truck are definitely strange; airbrakes. And the turning radius is, well, not great to say the least. I was hopeful I'd become more courageous (and even comfortable) as they day wore on. Instead, I could not wait to get out of the cab at Hubble in Ganado. Somewhere along the way, probably when I reached the first sharp curve in the road (which happened to also be a steep climb), I had the brilliant idea of calling U-Haul from Ganado and requesting a trade-in.

The engine was lurching and bucking regardless of how fast I drove. I had originally hoped that the problems with the engine were merely a function of either being cold or not having enough gas. Neither turned out to be the case and as I drove on, I knew I couldn't handle this truck all the way out to Flagstaff.

Once we arrived in Ganado at the historic Hubble Trading Post, I placed a call to U-Haul's 800 number requesting a trade be delivered to me. They offered to send a mechanic (did they think he could replace the engine in a parking lot?). After a lot of dickering back and forth, they asked what "mile marker" I was at. This occurred about an hour into our Hubble visit. Route 191 out of Chinle (Canyon de Chelly) is a not-well-maintained 2-lane with nothing around for 30+ miles. The town of Chinle consisted of a gas station, a fast-food place and a bank I was told was there but never saw. I also was told that there was a grocery store somewhere, but never saw that either.

The Navajo do not live in "towns" as we think of them. Instead, they live in family clusters and their homes are not usually visible from the road. This means that in Chinle, there may be 5 or 6 homes all belonging to various in-laws and not much else.

One of the women at the Hubble Visitors' Center remembered that her mother had returned a U-Haul to a town on I-40 called Sanders. Not far from the NM border, Sanders would be the perfect place to exchange the truck, so she called out there on my behalf. The agent agreed to the trade and, finally, U-Haul approved it for me. We were finally on our way to a "normal" sized vehicle. I thought I was getting a "van," an E-series passenger van.

When we arrived in Sanders, I was stunned to see a smaller version of the 24-footer, not a passenger van at all. But Corey assured me it was a LOT smaller, and since I couldn't drive the one I had been "driving," I traded mine in.

After awhile, Corey and I were back on the road, in a vehicle which drove just like a "regular" passenger van and resumed our original itinerary for Saturday. We went to the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert and had a great time until a wind-storm began. Seeing the dark clouds over the painted desert of Arizona was really weird. The Painted Desert/Petrified Forest National Park is actually on a tiny portion of the Painted Desert, which runs from the Cameron area south, then curves a bit. I-40 runs over the southern end. Inside the Visitors' Center, we watched a video explaining the creation of the area. In order to drive through the park, we had to go past the gatekeper where we were told we needed to declare any wood we were carrying. The National Park Service is very touchy about preserving the remaining petrified wood. Seems that millions of tons have been removed by visitors over the years and they'd like a few pieces to remain. After declaring the 3 large pieces I had bought on the reservation, we drove on. The Painted Desert is just amazingly huge. With the winds kicking, we drove the entire 26 miles through the National Park. We stopped, took a few pictures and drove some more. and then took backroads into Holbrook, where we once again picked up Route 66.

We arrived in Flagstaff to discover that Motel 6 West in Woodlands Village had no record of my 2-night reservation. Although I had a confirmation #, I decided that I did not like the attitude of the reservation clerk and left. While I had been waiting, no less than 3 separate guests had come in with complaints which had not been addressed all day. It was time to drive around and find another place to stay.

Of course, I had no idea where anything in Flagstaff was, so I guessed it didn't really matter which way I turned out of the parking lot. While at the front desk, I'd asked for directions to the Motel 6 on Butter, but the clerk had no idea. She called that property for me but the clerk there also had no idea how to get there, other than to go back onto I-40 which I did not want to do. Figuring at this point that if I'm going to see Flagstaff I would be totally on my own, I set out into the long-past sunset to "explore."

Realizing that I was, once again, on Route 66, I followed my instinct and drove east. We finally found a few seedy motels and chose the terrific Best Western Kings House to park ourselves for the next several days. We did not know if the car would even be looked at by the mechanics at Planet Subaru until it arrived, which turned out to be very late Monday. The car, I'd been told on Saturday, probably would not be ready until Wednesday.

Unfortunately, every single motel in Flagstaff is either way out in Woodlands Village or, if on Route 66, directly opposite the railroad. We found out the a train comes through every 10 minutes. For some unknown reason (there is no crossing there), the whistle just has to blow each time. We were in for a long few nights. Luckily, this motel has a beautiful property and a very nice pool. But, as my luck would have it, we arrived in Flagstaff just in time for their "monsoon season" which meant temperatures in the 60s, cloudy and humid.

We unloaded the truck into our motel room and settled in for the night. At least we finally had AOL access and I could upload the pictures I had ready. I still couldn't get the last few days' worth of pictures from my digital camera's memory card into my laptop for editing or uploading, but I had enough ready that I set the computer to upload all night while we slept.

Although Sunday was spent doing what was planned for Saturday: Hubble Trading Post, Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, we never were able to get back to Sunday's itinerary, therefore we missed going to Hopi's Second Mesa and Tuba City. We were closer to being back on schedule. All I had to do now was figure out how to return the truck and rent a car within walking distance of the motel.

Hubble Historic Trading Post	Painted Desert/Petrified Forest	Corey at Painted Desert
Me	Dust Storm	The Sky Darkens
Colors of the Desert	Ancient Ruins	Petroglyphs near ruins

~*~ Recommended Reading ~*~

Click for product description/ordering information

Petrified Forest: The Story Behind the Scenery

An Educational Book

Painted Desert: Land of Light & shadow

Click on a date, or go back to main page

Sunday July 7	Monday July 8	Tuesday July 9
Wednesday July 10	Thursday July 11	Friday July 12
Saturday July 13	Sunday July 14	Monday July 15
Tuesday July 16	Wednesday July 17	Thursday July 18
Friday July 19	Saturday July 20	Sunday July 21
Monday July 22	Tuesday July 23	Wednesday July 24
Thursday July 25	Friday July 26	Saturday July 27