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Published: January 15th 2008
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The day we were going to drive into the Grand Canyon National Park, we woke up to yet ANOTHER BLIZZARD! They had just closed all the roads in and out of Durango, the town we had left the day before and now were reporting that this new "Monster Storm" had come in from California where it had snowed 5 FEET! We started on the our way to the Grand Canyon, but the snow was already falling so fast and it was whiteout conditions, we changed our minds and decided we were done with snow for a little while. We turned the car south and decided to drive as long as it took to get out of the snow. By now we had christened the little Mercury car, "Blizzard Buster" and it proved itself worthy once again. It took us about three hours, but we made it down from the Colorado Plateau and the first town we came to without snow was Sedona, Arizona.
Sedona is known for its beautiful red rock scenery and what are called "vortexes" where energy collects that were said to realign your chakras. So we decided good energy was a good idea and took a
hike around the rocks and vortexes for the afternoon before heading to Phoenix. After a day off in sunny Mexico, we were ready to attempt the Grand Canyon for the second time.
We got up at 4 in the morning and started driving north again. We got to the Grand Canyon and there was one good thing about that snow storm - it made a lot of people cancel their reservations to stay at the bottom of the canyon in a place called Phantom Ranch where normally you have to book a year in advance. So we got accomodation at the bottom of the canyon, now we need to get there. We got crampons for the snow covered first two miles of the trail and began hiking down along the hundreds of switchbacks on the 7 mile Kaibab trail to the bottom of the canyon. We had great views on the canyons the whole way down and passed a few mules along the way too.
There wasn't any snow at the bottom of the canyon and it was about 20 degrees warmer. We had a big dinner of beef stew, cornbread and wine at the ranch
and realised that though we were sore from all the downhill, we were faring pretty well compared to everyone else! We had 12 hours of sleep and were ready for Grand Canyon Part 2: The Ascent. We took a different trail up the canyon. The Bright Angel trail is 9.5 miles of switchbacks following a creek all the way up. It wasn't as painful as downhill, but it was good when we were finally at the top after 6 hours of walking!
Buggered, we headed back to Phoenix to rest our weary muscles. We were almost there too, when the Blizzard Buster stalled in the middle of a main road and wouldn't start again. Not only wouldn't start, but wouldn't go into gear and the brake was jammed on. So there we were, stuck with traffic honking all around us! A police officer showed up when we were on the phone to get it towed and kept yelling, "You're on Bell Road! You need to move!". Understood, would love to move the car if we could! "You're gonna get rear-ended, you're on Bell Road!" Great, thank you officer! "If that tow truck doesn't come in ten minutes, we're towing you and charging you for it, you can't stay in the middle of Bell Road!" We finally did get the car towed and it has now been in the shop for three days and they still aren't sure what's wrong with it!
Luckily, we weren't too far from Max's house and he was able to pick us up. With no word yet on the car, we continued our adventures with Max and Marlene and went out to a little town near Califrornia called Quartzsite. The town only has a few hundred permanent residents, but its numbers swell into the tens of thousands every January when they have some of the biggest rock and gem shows in the world. It was RV city when we got there and a frenzy of activity. That night we went out to a local country-western bar and the locals and Max taught us the Arizona Two-step and the electric slide. After a few pitchers of beer that we drank in old fruit preserve jars, we taught the locals how to "freestyle" as they called it when the band played "Play that Funky Music" for us out-of-towners!
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