In the morning we drove back on the dirt road and stopped to thank the Sorensens for our wonderful stay. He showed us around the
Star Charter school they run which was established 12 years ago and has 120 (mostly) Navajo students. The school too is powered by solar panels and is a stand alone facility. Session begins next week so we didn't see any kids there, but did get a slight understanding of how the school operates.
We took route 180 into Flagstaff and stopped for breakfast at a local cafe. Our initial plan was to go see the Grand Canyon for an hour and then head north to Lake Powell for the weekend. We drove on the old Route 66 in Flagstaff and headed to the Grand Canyon. In the past few days we climbed in elevation from approximately 400 ft in Dallas to 6000 ft near Flagstaff. The weather got cooler at night and the terrain got a lot more hilly. Even though we haven't been getting along the best with each other in the past week, the beautiful ride between the thick green forests and the million dollar views compensate for all of it. We stopped on the side of the road to stretch and take a fow photos and continued through Tusayan town toward the entrance to the park.
Our whole trip has been on a budget and when were were requested to pay $25 to enter the park we got a little mad. However we figured out we could purchase a yearly pass for all the National and State parks in the United States for $40, so we opted for that deal. We drove straight to the visitor center and went to the desk to get some answers. After the ranger explained to us what we can do and where are the best views of the canyon, we decided to change our plans of driving up north, and stay for at the Grand Canyon campsite for the weekend.
We hopped on the free bus and took the 8 mile long southern stretch of view points to see the canyon. We were told that with the stops it would be a 3 hour activity so we brought some water and a backpack for the trip.
I have never been to the Grand Canyon and when I saw the vast openness and the 2000 meter cliffs for the first time I was just overwhelmed. The canyon is huge, on a clear day it's possible to see across to the north rim and even further to the rocky mountains. I never did much research before I got here but found out the beauty of the Grand Canyon is thanks to nearly 2 billion years of geological processes. We got off the bus at all 8 scenic view points and walked around the marked paved trails. There are no roads that go through the actual canyon, however it is possible to hike down to the Colorado river.
After the seeing all the view points from above we hopped on the bus back to our bikes. A few moments before we left we were talking about the fact that we haven't seen nor met any Israeli tourist till now, and lo and behold we heard 3 other people on the bus speaking Hebrew. We usually are hesitant to interact with Israelis when we are on vacation because its enough to live with them, jokingly saying, but they seemed more friendly than usual. We found out they work for El Al as flight attendants and got two days off when they landed in LA, and decided to drive up to see the Grand Canyon. We a had short conversation with them and almost sat down for a cup of coffee but they were in a hurry to get back to California.
We had a very relaxing Friday night meal in Tusayan and camped out for the night in the town too. Tomorrow we plan on taking a day hike in the Grand Canyon to enjoy the scenic views through our legs.
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