Sedona - Albuquerque

So we're in Flagstaff. And we decide we want to see the sunrise over Sedona's famous red rock formations. We google the time the sun will rise on that day, set our alarm clocks one hour in advance (it's a 40 mile drive), and go to bed. Wake up 4 minutes later, climb into the car, drive to fucking Sedona. The sun rises as we're about one third of the way there. Because why the fuck not. We get to the rocks, climb up to some vista point (my left foot still being sore, btw), and take a look around. I admit - it's quite pretty.

Drive back to Flagstaff, Gosia goes to sleep for another hour, until we are called down by the reception, because it's past checkout. How rude - we still have at least half an hour left!

Except we don't. Turns out Arizona is in a separate timezone from the rest of the world ("It's a redneck thing" the concierge explains), so we lost one hour when we entered the state. Hence the sunrise mishap. We never stood a chance.

Meanwhile, it turns out that one of the Pajiba people used to live in Flagstaff, so they recommend a whole bunch of stuff for us to see and eat. We do both (including something called a Navajo Taco - which is pretty good indeed), and make our way north to the Grand Canyon.

The Grand Canyon is grand and filled with Asian tourists. It's kind of like the Vegas of nature - you can't really describe it. We take pictures. I remove my hoodie to strike a Johnny Bravo pose over it, and that's the last I see of that particular article of clothing.

Once we're done oohing and aahing, we head east, towards Albuquerque. It turns out that the Grand Canyon isn't done with us yet though - at times the drive offers even more amazing views of its immensity, so I quickly forget about the hoodie.

And then we just drive, until the end of time. We arrive at the Travelodge in Albuquerque shortly before midnight, utterly exhausted, since we've been up since around 5 a.m. on account of the friggin' sunrise. Towards the end of the drive we reach a sort of desperately cheerful hysteria, laughing at the most absurd things. The motel looks like a place you go to to network with serial killers. As we fiddle with our keys, the door behind us opens and we are greeted with the sight of a very well-worn blond lady with a child in one hand and a cigarette in the other, staring at us somewhat confrontationally. We opt not to make a new friend and duck into our room - which turns out to be very clean and comfortable.

Las Vegas - Flagstaff

On day five we got up early and took in the view of daytime Vegas from our 23rd floor windows. It looked bright and hot and somehow too real. Gosia went down to swim in the pool, and I discovered that the hotel Internet does not block porn. Alas, we were not provided dressing gowns, so my Destiny moment was incomplete.

After checking out, we did some research and determined that our best buffet option is the Golden Nugget in Old Vegas. Driving there took us about an hour, because 6-lane highways are very unsurprisingly confusing, but it was more or less worth it. We paid around 14 bucks each, and ate two freight trains worth of everything. Hot plates, cold plates, desserts... anything from crab salad to teriyaki chicken. It wasn't exactly fine dining, but none of the stuff we picked tasted bad (and we picked about 15 different dishes each), and some of it was quite tasty.

And so, we left Las Vegas on a high note and headed to Flagstaff. The drive offered us another tiny cultural shock - Nevada was scorching hot, but in Arizona we actually saw patches of snow. It might have something to do with elevation - Flagstaff is about 3000m above sea level, I think - but still, it took us by surprise.

Flagstaff is a really cool little city. The closest comparison I can think of is the town from Northern Exposure - except more populous, and with an overabundance of really cool bars and cafes. It's surrounded by fir forests (I've no idea if those are actually firs, but just go with the image), and there's a single snowy peak on the horizon, called Snowball, from what I recall.

We checked into our hotel - the Hotel Monte Vista, with every room named after a different Old Hollywood star - and hit the town, eventually ending up at some brewery/eatery, where I sort of amazed myself by flirting with our waiter for a bit, and then immediately disgusted myself when it came up that he isn't even old enough to drink yet. We drank for a while, ate chicken wings, wrote some postcards, and finished the evening at our hotel bar. And then set our alarm clocks to 5 a.m. or so, because we decided to see the sunrise over the red rocks in Sedona. I'm still not quite sure what possessed me to agree to (and possibly even propose, it's all a haze now) this plan. It was probably the "might not get another chance" Jedi mind trick, and I'm never falling for it again.