Country Roads: Part 2 - He's a Highway Child/Gimme Gimme Shelter

After an exciting, and grueling first day I decided to take advantage of the noon check-out time for my hotel in Vegas.

I woke up around 20 after 10 in order to catch the end of breakfast in the hotel restaurant - it wasn't free but $3.50 a short stack of pancakes isn't bad. Of course when you throw on the apple juice and the side of bacon it turned into an $8 breakfast, but whatever, I need to eat.

After breakfast I went back to my room, showered, and packed up my things. My route was already planned out, I'm going to the Grand Canyon. But first, a stop for lunch at a place featured on Diner's, Drive-Ins, and Dives, "The 4 Kegs".

Guy Fieri was actually a regular customer there when he went to UNLV. I threw the coordinates into the GPS and despite the 95 degree heat, made it. I grabbed a booth next to a sort of wall of fame, where Guy had signed some pictures. I also had a good view of 2 TVs - one showing the Italy World Cup match, and the other college baseball, but with the ESPN bottom line. After weighing my options (something I really have to do when eating out), I decided to throw caution into the wind and order one of the 4 Kegs strombolis. I got the meatball one. I hoped I wouldn't regret subjecting my stomach to it.

It came and looked great. I bit into it and it was gr... friggin hot! I was eventually able to get some in my mouth and was very happy I ordered it. The crust was light and crisp and the meatballs were good. As I was eating Italy tied their match at 1 and earned a draw. After powering through half of the stromboli I was ready to depart.

Back in the car and on to the Grand Canyon! Except that I was stuck in traffic before the Hoover Dam for an hour, maybe longer as there's only 1 lane to go through the security check. To kill some time I called my mom to check in and tell her everything was good - minus the traffic and the heat.

After a long time I finally got past security and got to drive on the Hoover Dam into Arizona. From there it was pretty smooth sailing until I was stopped again on my way into Grand Canyon National Park. Not as much of an inconvenience, just wondered why the line I was on moving about 6 times slower than the other one. Then I saw the $25 access charge and cursed TJ in my head again. Regardless, I got into the park as the sun was getting ready to set. I parked by the visitor's center, grabbed my camera and headed over to the South Rim.

I took a bunch of pictures and tried to get the sunset-ting effect but the SLR kept making things brighter. So I played a little with the aperture and shutter speed, although I'm not sure I made anything better. I silently wished Manolo was around so I could ask him how to take the picture I wanted. Oh well. I suppose I should get a book of digital photography basics, or ask Julie to explain and help me learn, when I see her in London. Her photos are great and I'm not a complete moron, so she should be able to teach me.

Anyway, I got back in the car as the sun had nearly gone down, and started driving out the other side of the park. It was getting darker and darker and I began to plan where to spend the night. I also wanted to make sure that I got enough mileage in, so that I didn't set myself back on the time I predicted for the trip.

I kept driving and looking at the signs for upcoming towns. I eventually settled on Kayenta, Arizona and had the GPS navigate me to a Hampton Inn. I got out of the car and went to the front door.

Locked.
That's strange.

Oh well, there's a Holiday Inn on the otherside of the street and a little ways up. I went in and asked for a room - they were booked. The woman told me that she was pretty sure that the Hampton Inn (that I had come from) and the Best Western down the street were also fully booked. Now if I was smart I would have asked what the hell was going on that all the hotels were booked, but it was late, I was tired and now needed to drive further.

With the GPS as my guide I kept searching for a place to spend the night. By now we're approaching 1 in the morning.

Funny thing, Arizona isn't really dense with hotels so you have to drive a fairly long ways. I went to 3 or 4 more hotels, many closed for the night where I'd have to call to get someone to come back to the hotel. Plus it seemed like $99 for the night was the best deal.

So after visiting hotel number 5 or 6 since finding out that I had no place to stay, I decided to (smartly) rough it. I pulled around back of a nice looking hotel, found an empty parking space, turned the car off, set my cell phone alarm and put my hat over my eyes to get some sleep because it was now after 2am.

It wasn't the most comfortable rest and I only got a few hours (maybe 3), but now I have this story.