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Stepping off the plane at Phoenix and you have an absolute baptism of fire (well heat). It’s dry and hot in this part of the world but even though I have experienced Phoenix before it doesn’t prepare you for the blast as you leave the airport building.

I headed over to the Car Hire company in the air conditioned bus, but everyone was talking about the heat. Surprising really, being that they get over 320 days of sunshine a year and it always gets hot around June 1. After picking up the wrong car up in the garage (it was the same model and colour, rather than a me moment) I was on the road and heading out of Phoenix on the freeway. The local radio was on and they were talking about the next 4 days of heat. Today is wednesday and it is 98F outside. On Saturday and Sunday they are expecting 111F. Listening to the local TV channels, they are as pathetic as our own channels when it gets to practicalities. Friday night, “Phoenix is going to be hitting 110F this weekend and we have got a couple of ideas for you to take the family, the Phoenix Water Park”. Saturday night, “We may get to the record 111F on Sunday, so our advice is, if you don’t need to go out, don’t!”. If anyone is reading in Arizona, invite your reporters to send in their resumes to the BBC. No, I am not moanin’ it’s just that TV people are shallow.

I have 140 miles to drive to get to my Hotel in Flagstaff, but the first 10 is still grinding its way out of Phoenix and the afternoon traffic. After that you get a sense of where you are. You’re in the Desert and there are traditional looking cactus everywhere, like unattached fenceposts dotted everywhere you can see. The drive is great though as the land goes up and down and there are mountains and valleys to keep you occupied and to focus you driving on the wrong side of the road. I’m sure driving wasn’t like this when we let go of the colony 200 some years ago. The other amazing thing was the change in landscape inside the 2 hour drive. You pass through Desert, to green scrub land and then to dense green forest as you get close to Flagstaff, which faces the Mountains. The land also rises to 7000 feet above sea level, so the temperature shaves a bit to a cool 75F. It’s still hot though as today there isn’t a major cloud in the sky.

Next day was a lazy day, which I caught up on blogging and laundry and looked out at the heat from the bar rather than venturing out. I did do an amble of 2 miles around the local forest as I felt guilty, saw more nature, Prairie Dogs, Red Squirrels, Some Blue birds and a Girl on a Bike!

Next day, off for a tour around Sedona. Sedona is a beautiful desert town with some rugged mountains of red and light brown rock. A bit like Uluru’s rock in the Red Centre, but shaped by passing water over the billions of years and the lines in the rock (the sedimentary layers I believe) go horizonal, where the Aussie one’s go vertical. The interesting thing is that Sedona is a thriving town in the middle of the rocks. You will see from the pictures that they must get water from somewhere as there is still a lot of green around. The entrance to Sedona is through a winding mountain road through the forests and you repeatedly get glimpses of high peaks and lows creeks that are impossible to photograph by myself in the car. I am trying my hardest to stay on the right hand side of the road.

The town is a low level (building height, land is at 7000 feet) high street which has side roads that go up to the feet of the mountains. It is as if they had designed the town and then put the rocks in to compliment it. This is ‘cowboy country’ to me, the sort where the pioneeering wranglers goes across the desert in search of steer, they run out of water, shoot the donkey and then get an arrow in the back. A bit like corporate life really!

I toured around taking photo’s and just staring. I did stop off at one church, the chapel of the Holy Cross, which is built into the mountain and lit a candle for Sue, as I thought she would have liked this one. But in places like Sedona where the temperature must have been 95F today, the flowers are still blooming and the trees are in leaf. I’m getting a bit like David Attenborough.

I’m staying in Flagstaff which is a small town off Route 66 at a motel-like hotel, ‘The Little America’. It occupies a big plot of land, but instead of going upwards, its goes along. The feel I got for the hotel was when I walked into their reception, was one of a 1950’s hollywood set for a Bing Crosby movie. Soft furnishings, bold rock brickwork and lots of wood. It really was a cozy place to stay and the people were friendly. Now some were friendlier than others. As part of their complex they also had a Truckers park and the characters came into the Hotel bar each evening. Some where definitely quick talkers with the local ladies (although there were very few unattached women). The stories they struck up were funny though, recounting particular routes, home states, estranged wives, and lots of tall stories. Somehow, it seemed the clientele suited the place. Seeing the efforts of one driver on a local being wasted was hilarious to watch, as he bullshitted his way into a nose spin. Good fun.

So back to the sight seeing. My aim for this part of the trip was to see the Grand Canyon, so I headed out on the indirect of the two routes available which took me though mile after mile of grass land, forest and desert. You wouldn’t think you could get this all at once but you do. All I could think over was Cowboys and Indians as the openings between the trees (long and wide) were a fitting scene for a horse chase. It was a pleasant drive and with my Country albums banging out for 2 hours each way it was a very relaxing transit. So what of the Grand Canyon?…Really Awesome!

I don’t know what I was expecting as TV and photo’s never really give you the depth and the feeling of being there. I got out at the Visitor Centre and made a few hundred yards walk to the first observation point. You are going up a slight incline so don’t see a thing but blue sky until you get to the last 20 feet and then !!!!! wow! This is really massive and the cuts in the ground go on for as far as the eye can see. It is so big that you don’t know where to point your camera. And the colours! When we talk about wonders of the world the natural ones take some beating. The Colorado River has cut lines in the rocks for 2 Billion Years. When you see the slither of River now against the deep groves and hundreds of miles of canyon ??..now that’s a wonder! I walked for about 2 kilometres across the south rim, but it was hot, just short of 95F and I could feel my arms sizzling. My head was fine as I had my Aussie Jackaroo hat to give a little shade, but I was heating up.

For the right side views of the Canyon, I got back into the car and the air conditioning and drove the 25 miles to various scenic points, each different to the last, but I think it will be a hard one to explain to the folks back home. All I will say is, come out to this one and see it for yourselves (and Sedona).

I have about 200 photos of various angles, but I think my favourite is a young couple that I spotted that had walked out on one of the ledges and sat down with their feet dangling over the edge. This gives you the real perspective. I was thinking of setting up my tripod and walking out there myself, but once one person has done it I don’t think it would have been fair to mimic their adventure.

So that was about it for Arizona, other than to drive back through the immense scenery once more to Phoenix Airport. And I can tell you that Country music sounds even sweeter when you are looking out at this stuff. Try a bit of Luke Bryan to these photo’s, believe me, honest!

And for Phoenix, as I waited for a shuttle bus back at the Airport it was 106F in the shade!