of tires and sunsets (summer vacation part2)
Aaron
The continuation of the retelling of my vacation:
Tuesday:
After sleeping in a little later than expected, we woke up and started things off with an oatmeal breakfast. We packed up all our stuff into Amy’s car and headed back to the Grand Canyon Information Center. After some thinking, we decided to just take the free Shuttle along Desert View drive going East and hit all the lookout points.
Our first stop was Grandview Point. Since this was the only spot we’d be stopping at with a trail on it, we decided to hike down a little ways. This one was much steeper and more treacherous, hugging close to a rather sheer slope with little room for error. It did offer some great photo opportunities though. Once finished, we got back on the bus and took it to Moran Point. While the bus stopped for a few minutes, I got out and snapped some pictures, then hopped right back on.
Finally, we went to the Desert View area where they have a really cool watchtower you can climb up and look out of. I believe this is the first and only time we could actually see the Colorado River. Knowing that we still had a 4 hour drive ahead of us, we decided it was time to head back toward the Deegan’s place in Glendale.
About 20 miles or so from Flagstaff, we noticed a thumping sort of noise and the car seemed to be shaking. At first we thought it was just the road, but when we drove onto a smoother part it was still going. So we pulled off at a rest stop only to find that the tread on the front right tire was splitting apart. After a lengthy period of time and a lot of trouble I found out that one of the lug nuts for that wheel was a different size and the lug wrench was too big for it. We even enlisted the help of a friendly trucker and his wife, but nothing in his entire socket set worked. Finally we just decided to bite the bullet (or perhaps the tire) and make the drive to a Discount Tires in Flagstaff. After a few phone calls we found the place, a mere 20 minutes before they closed (another close one). While they fixed the tire we grabbed a bite from the nearby Carl’s Jr. We thanked the Lord that we had made it in time and watched the sun begin to set as we ate our burgers.
Our car was the last one to be worked on, but we didn’t mind the wait. I did manage to get some good pictures of the sunset on the drive back. We finally made it to Glendale safely around 8:40 pm and relieved some stress by watching a few episodes of The Office. I hadn’t seen much of it before, so we watched it off and on throughout the rest of the week. And so ended an adventurous (but good) day.
Wednesday:
**Sadly, I forgot to bring my camera with me this day (stupid, I know) so no pictures**
Having slept fairly comfortably on an air matress in the living room, I woke up and walked the dog (Malachi) with Pete. He’s only about four months old, but I can tell he’s going to be a big dog, I think he’s part Great Dane. Anyhow, Pete forgot to bring a bag and we hoped to get him to the dog park before he (Malachi that is) relieved himself, but sadly he couldn’t (or didn’t want to) hold it that long and emptied his load on the sidewalk right in front of the park. Alas.
After some running around at the park, we walked back to the house and Pete headed off to work. Christie, Amy, myself, and the kids visited the library to drop off and pick up some books and movies. Then we met up with Pete at a BBQ restaurant called Famous Dave’s.
The food was very good. They had 5 kinds off sauces at the table, and we sampled all of them, finally deciding that Sweet and Zesty was our favorite. They also had a lot of witty sayings posted around such as “Yes, there are flames in Barbecue Heaven” and “Our best pigs have Famous Dave’s donor cards.” We saw that when it’s someone’s birthday, they get a bunch of ice cream and a huge sparkling candle thing. So we pretended it was Pete’s birthday (dishonest I know, but you would have done the same if you’d seen that candle, and he did have a birthday recently. Also, Christie was doing a restaurant online secret shopper thing, so I guess you could say it was a necessary part of the experience.)
That evening we went to church. I really enjoyed the college group, though only a few people actually participated much in the discussion. Given the opportunity, I’d gladly go back there. Back at the house we played a couple games of Pirate’s Dice (aka Liar’s Dice) and I think everyone enjoyed it even though I won both times (largely due to a lot of luck on my part and some previous experience with the game).
Tune in again for the next (and hopefully last) telling of my adventures in and returning from Arizona.
Posted in |
1 Comment »













