Raising Arizona
Trip Start
Mar 08, 2008
1
5
9
Trip End
Mar 28, 2008
Williams,
Arizona,
United States
Saturday, March 15, 2008
A closed freeway and a combined decision by myself and Vaughan that 'Maybe' (our GPS) wouldn't be able to handle this in her navigation resulted in us diverting from our original destination of funky Flagstaff to the historic and quaint American town of Williams. Situated just outside the entrance to the Grand Canyon this town is quintiessential small town America at its best. Indeed it could almost be a replica of Stars Hollows (the fictional town from the Gilmore Girls) without the Rotunda and Park. For example, the guy at the coffee shop was really grumpy and acted like he didn't want to serve me (only some will get this reference).
Sad Wild West Show
The town features numerous hotels and lodges as well as everything you'd expect to see in a US small town. No chain stores and mostly the local guy. Small Cafe's and boutique restaurants as well as Bakeries and gift shops all feeding off the people coming into the Grand Canyon. Note that in America bakeries are not the same as in Australia where you line up to get bread and pastries, here they act more like Cafe's that sell you bread related products.Williams is about 7000 ft above sea level and after experiencing temperatures in the mid 20s everywhere else we've been it was a big change when the mercury plummetted down to 0 degress celcius and less. Not only this but the coolest thing happened to us when we were here - It snowed. Now I don't mean wussy Australian snow, I mean the real deal powdered snow that covers the ground and settles. Being the crazy Australians we are we had to walk around in it and act like we'd never seen it before. Sadly all the crap Earthclub camps (Christian ski camps where nobody would speak to you but somehow people thought were great) to the snow in my old church put me off going to the snow in Australia and so it was good to experience it here.
Here we basically had the classic small town experience. We had breakfast in the stereotypical US Cafe-diner where the waitress would continually come by and refill your cup and ate all the yummy food you'd expect in an American fry up. This is the sort of society I'd love to live in whereby you get free refills of coffee and sodas at every meal just as it is here.
Snow
I've no idea what Americans think when they come to Australia and have to pay for things by the glass but I'm guessing they are not happy about it. Vaughan too has been enjoying the refills although it took him a while to realise they were free (partially my fault for not making a big deal of it or finding out if it was so) and has been induldging. The coffee in Williams was also excellent and its going in my book - coffee - An American survival guide.Probably the low light of our time here was a re-enactment of a Wild West Show. Imagine the scene, a bunch of guys dressed up as Cowboys pretending to be back in Arizona in the 1880s. In the background are fake props for the saloon, hotel, general store etc .... It is bucketting down with snow and the crowd that has come are freezing their butts off watching these guys put on phoney accents and trying to ad-lib a story about nothing. They had no plan for what they were doing and their entire re-enactment got more and more embrassingly bad that they just fired their pretend guns. Indeed it was so bad it made our old beach mission dramas (amateur dramas for kids) look like they were professional. We left after 10 mins of this rubbish, and also because we had freezing wet butts. I really hope these guys don't do this thing every day.
And so we're off to the Grand Canyon and are likely to experience it in a way only a minority do - when it is covered in snow.
Paul.
POD WATCH - A ride with Vaughan
Many years ago Vaughan made a tape compilation series for his car featuring many classics from the 1980s. In the spirit & honour of this compilation I too have created a special compilation for us to complement our journey (along with the complimentary cactus trees we see along the way). I tried to feature songs from US bands to help get us in the mood for our trip buy sadly there are very few decent US songs that Vaughan might like without sending him into spasms. And so I was forced to avoid the classic US bands like Kansas, Journey, Reo Speedwagon, STYX, Blue Oyster Cult and many more because basically the music here has been challenged for many years. Indeed even on the radio all I hear is music from the UK and even a few songs from Australia so I've no idea what is going on. And so along the way we've been listening to the same 5 CD's I made before coming. The ironic thing was that when we did listen to the radio they played mostly the same songs I had on the CDs and so we reverted back.
