Flagstaff or should I say Flue staff

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Flagstaff or should I say Flue staff

Firstly two notes for this blog 1) it will be a lot shorter than most (yippee I hear you cry) for reasons that will become apparent very soon and 2) it may be full of negative ranting on my part as I try to get over my current mood, so please take most of the following with a pinch of salt - some things just need to be said……

Anyway as we left Vegas and headed for the Hoover Dam, which didn’t take any time at all really, Nath, having started with a cough last night (which we assumed was all the smoke in the casino) had started to feel a bit worse, you know the usual just a bit run down, so we carried on regardless not giving it another thought. Got to the Dam, which held no real interest for me so whilst Nath went on the tour I sat and enjoyed the sun out on their terrace and continued with our blog. I sat there with a cup of tea that I’d got for 2 cents cheaper than it should have been!!! (Using the weight of coins I had from Vegas that the stupid woman wouldn’t change up, I was still 2 cent short, but the girl behind the counter must have felt sorry for me and let me off). Not sure how long I sat there really but by the time Nath came back he was looking very run down put was happy because he had just had a wee at the top off the dam. So as we still had about 4 hours to drive we headed straight off knowing we wouldn’t now get to Flagstaff till 8pm.

The drive down (well up as it turns out, about 7000 ft up) was great as we managed to get some shots of a great sunset out the back of the car, shame we weren’t travelling in the opposite direction but all the same it made the ride really nice. By the time we started to ascend the radio channels had reduced to two, some country blues channel and a holy worship type channel. Faced with the prospect of a rock and a holy place we went with the holy place (I hate country music) and got to listen to how children are evil at times and how we should punish them etc - quite interesting really…..anyway we arrived in flagstaff not a minute too soon, Nath had really gone down hill and just wanted to go to bed so we got booked into our 4 bed dorm and while I went to make some tea Nath said he was gonna go straight to bed.

The hostel was really lovely and warm and had a nice homely feel to it. I know some of the review websites had said it was quiet and had no atmosphere but I thought it was great and had plenty of atmosphere (just no one shagging in the bathroom or the smell of vomit from the rooms - rock and roll man!!!). Anyway as I was making tea I got chatting with a lovely girl called Maike from Holland. We chatted for ages about the usual things and the more we chatted the more I found we were like one another (was she “special too?? - Nath), great girl I thought and so friendly. In the mean time Nath had been feeling worse and worse so by the time I’d said good night and gone to bed he was sat shivering (yet burning up) on the bed unable to sleep and a little bit delusional. I went straight into nurse mode (not in the fashion Nath would have liked - not that he was really aware of anything at the time) and tucked him in and got him everything he could need. A little nervous I started doing some research on the net - yes about swine flu - to check and sent a few emails to our and the use Gov web sites to find out what we are meant to do abroad. Anyway I stayed awake most of the night keeping an eye on Nath so neither of us got any real sleep that evening. I was meant to go on the hostel organised tour of the Grand Canyon but had to take my name off the list as I didn’t want to leave Nath alone the next morning as he was still looking very rough.

Everyone in the hostel had been so helpful up to this point, helping with medicines and suggestions for what would help. The hostel owners had kindly offered to not let the other two bunks out in our room so Nath could be ill in peace, plus I don’t think any other hosteller would have wanted to be in with us anyway!! With Nath dosed up to the eye balls with everything we had I met Maike for breakfast and we decided to spend the day hanging out together (I did have our car but I wasn’t on the insurance to drive so was fundamentally stranded). We went to this “old house” circa 1905 (wow) where some local land/business owners had made their wealth and put flagstaff on the map. It was a lovely old house with lots of the original furniture etc in it (which the family’s grandchildren had donated to the town) but it was generally just a house. You were told at the beginning by Tony our guide that you had to turn your phones off and weren’t allowed to touch or take any photos. The only half arsed explanation we got for this was that they didn’t want people selling pictures of the inside??? We later heard another guide saying mobile phones were to be turned off so to keep with the feeling that you were going back in time!! If that’s true then I wanted my entrance fee to representative of “back in time!”, 1905 prices please 😊

Back at the hostel I checked on Nath again who was doing a tiny bit better but not much. I kept him company for a few hours and then went for a massage with Maike that we had arranged earlier that day to be done by students, thus being cheap. When we got there you were taken into what I can only describe as an A and E looking waiting room with cubicles separated by a curtain…well anyway I got ready and waited under the blanket as usual and the young girl was very quick dong my back so I was beginning to wonder if I’d infact order a full body massage - needless to say when she uncovered my legs to see I still had my trousers on it seems I was correct “sorry was I meant to take those off·?” I said, yes it would seem so. So with my unshaved legs now having a massage I just knew painfully that the poor girl was gonna have to move onto my unwashed feet - my bad. I had previously asked her, when she was doing my back, to be a bit firmer, but hadn’t asked her to adjust since then, so there were times when she as massaging that I felt sick with pain, but let her continue figuring it was meant to be a “deep tissue” massage anyway so maybe this was normal, and hey she was practicing too so can’t be too critical. At the end of it, which overall was lovely, I found she was in fact a qualified therapist and that I was to pay the full price, plus a “suggested” $8-10 tip on top - god I hate this tipping thing. Being as it was a good massage I did tip but only a small amount as I hadn’t brought much money with me. Both Maike and I ranted about the tipping audacity and how we hated it and back home it would be considered very rude to even suggest you should be given a tip - I’m so glad we had met, finally someone I could share my thoughts with!! (Nath- Mandy forgot to mention that Maike also failed to realise it was an all over body massage and had left her trousers on as well, like peas in a pod - both “special”)

I’d picked up some ginger and lemon on the way back as this had been suggested by many people so help with our immune system (bit late for Nath but at least it helped his throat etc and I figured I should do everything I can for the next few days to make sure I don’t get infected. That evening Maike and I shared a microwave dinner with some veggies which was great and Nath bless tried his hardest to eat some soup but didn’t manage more than a few mouthfuls of bread. That night Maike and I put the world to rights and again found we were very similar in what we thought about things. So at least the silver lining to my not seeing the canyon was to hang out with a new friend (with Nath being ill and me having to socialise on my own I did get to meet lots of nice people).

The next day (Maike had left this morning) I rested and continued to look after Nath and we didn’t really do anything at all. I signed up for the canyon trip again for the next day (Monday) and also booked us in for another night as I didn’t think Nath would be up for moving on………but then I got ill too, and it was horrible. The hostel had gone from being a lovely warm place to feel at home in, to a prison. Even staying in the bedroom for any length of time was beginning to make me feel sick. So for the next couple of days we both just laid in bed being ill. We didn’t see the canyon or flagstaff, but noticed it was getting bloody cold though as snow had began to fall on our last night!!!

5 days after arriving we had to leave, firstly for our own sanity and secondly, coz I could cry at the thought of staying in the room another night. Even thinking back now is turning my stomach slightly - funny the associations you make! So we set off in minus 5 weather towards our half way mark of Barstow, 5 hours from flagstaff and still 6 hours from Yosemite. (We had to head off to Yosemite because we already had reservations there) So after driving 5 hours to flagstaff from Las Vegas to be ill and not see the Grand canyon or Bryce canyon etc we have now driven 5 hours back west just to spend a night in the middle of nowhere coz it’s about half way to Yosemite and Nath couldn’t drive any further bless him. We are now on our way to Yosemite and both feeling a little better but still coughing like we smoke 50 a day. So with swine flu over with hopefully, we now continue on our journey…….

Well having written all that out my ranting never really came to fruition, so to avoid disappointment here have been my moans and thoughts over the last few days of being ill…..
1) I hate tipping still, I would rather be back home getting mediocre service form miserable employees who don’t expect anymore than for you to pay for the meal than continue to have superficial super friendly staff that are doing so for tips. Sorry for anyone working in the industry that actually is just being friendly, it’s hard to tell.
2) For the first time in my life I am actually proud to be British, I find I’m missing the little things from home, the comforts, the confidence to know what I’m doing I guess.
3) Why does everything here taste or sugar or salt!!! Or maybe its just coz we’re eating the cheap food? No wonder there are huge people here and super skinny people here, coz hey what are you gonna be able to eat that isn’t already pre loaded with rubbish!!??
4) The road markings here are either backward or none existent (Nath’s rant that one)

erm, there were a lot more than that yesterday when I was in a foul mood but I cant think of as much today which is probably a good thing as nothing was right yesterday (poor Nath). Needless to say so far my less than enthusiastic opinion on the US has pretty much been confirmed which is a shame as I was hoping I was wrong. Seems like this just isn’t the place for me. I’m sure once we’ve got to Yosemite and I’m over this flu I’ll be more positive again, so sorry but sometimes you have to get these things out. And hey if you wanted a written commentary on the history and culture of these places you’d have read a book about them by now (unless you are Nath of course). This blog is more for thoughts, feelings and stuff we’ve done coz lets face it, with Nath’s rubbish memory he is going to need it!!!

PS. sorry, I said at the beging this would be a short entry but its ended up being fairly long......my bad!

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Photos

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At the dam (whats with the face pulling?)

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Inside one of the diversion tunnels

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New bridge being built next to the dam

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Long way down!!