Route 66 Westbound - Day Eight: Flagstaff to Kingman AZ

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I have seen the quality of God's work. And it is good.

Anyone remember Bill Cosby's routine about this? It was one of the funniest things I'd ever heard at the time and still resonates today. The quality of God's work: Good. Not great, not fantastic...not AWESOME. Good. We invented words like fantastic and awesome. Man made a car, said Fantastic! God made a tree, said Good. Man made a refrigerator, said Awesome! God made a rabbit, said Good.

The wheels fell off the car and the refrigerator stopped working. The tree's still up and the rabbit's still running.

This is not a sermon. There will not be collection after this. It's just a worthwhile precursor to what I saw today. And what I saw can change lives.

6:30am found us on the road north from Flagstaff, passing from a urban sprawl very quickly to what could easily pass as the New Hampshire woods. Temperatures dropped into the 40's and there was ACTUAL SNOW visible. Granted, it was way the hell up on the top of Agassiz's Peak, but it was snow. An hour later, we entered the Grand Canyon National Park, and everything I thought I remembered was completely blown away.

Along the way, we stumbled on a near-forgotten treasure. At the junction of routes 64 and 180 lies Fred Flintstone's Bedrock Campground, a place I have visual evidence of my family visiting 40 years ago on a road trip from Houston to LA. Sadly, the wooden cutout where you can stick your head through holes and become Fred or Barney is gone, otherwise I woulda had a shot of me and Kennedy recreating a very fond memory from my childhood.

A few miles on you enter the park itself and....time slows. We were there four hours and it felt like four minutes. From vista to vista, even 100 yards apart the canyon constantly changes. I've attached about 20 or so pictures from today just as a reference. The full 70-shot upload from today can be viewed on Dropbox at the following link:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/z86twowz64hntur/AACrnWy3hMzxrBOEkL64dez9a?dl=0

I really wish I had some profound words to express my wonder today. The truth is it's going to take me a few days to process everything that I saw today. There are some things, some experiences that need a little introspection before you can relate them, and this was the Mother of those Things.

The road out followed modern Route 66 from Seligman to Kingman, an arrow straight two-lane that stretches for nearly 80 miles and actually makes you appreciate the Mustang. In "race track" mode, it gets from 0-100 in about 7 seconds and then looks at you like you're a pussy when you take your foot off the gas. It was a lot of fun...until I remembered that my MINI would have destroyed this thing.

Now sitting in Kingman with Kennedy's relatives, the wonderful Margie and Ron and getting ready for a day of no driving tomorrow, life feels good. The only thing missing is a pair of brown eyes and a smile that still melts my heart. Home....soon.

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