Day 8 - Williams, AZ to Tuba City, AZ
Breakfast was tea & donuts (again) provided by the motel & then we headed back up to Grand Canyon to see the bits we hadn't gotten to the previous day.
Handy job for the postman :
Once we got to the canyon we headed east along the south rim and visited Mather Lookout & Grandview Point.
A bit of perspective - see the little peopole on top :
Our final stop was at the Watchtower, a stone building designed along the lines of old Indian buildings. One look at this thing and I thought 'Yeah, right. Like that's something the Indians would have built / lived in. Where's the teepee's ?' Teepee's are of course what the Plains Indians lived in & the Puebloan Indians built buildings just like the one I was looking at. Every day's a school day
The Watchtower has the ubiquitous shop selling all the stuff you can buy in every national park on the ground floor and the first floor, which is circular, has Indian paintings on the walls & numerous windows around its circumference. The top floor is open & gives stunning views of the canyon and the Painted Desert.
The mighty Colorado :
Inside the Watchtower :
A quick bite of lunch in the cafe adjacent and we were almost ready to go, except there was no sign of Liam & Dave. After a couple of minutes Liam appeared out of the visitor centre & said 'you've gotta come in & listen to this', They'd struck up a conversation with one of the staff & he was giving us great information about the route we were planning to travel, where we'd likely find accommodation, etc. But he also told us to keep an eye outin the Indian villages as sone might be having kochina dances for rain, good crops, etc.
The road to Tuba :
On the bikes again and keep the heads down to Tuba City to find a bed. But about 20 miles out of the park I spotted a sign which rang a bell with me. When we'd been in Kingman (remember, back on Route 66 ?) the lady in the information office had mentioned Little Colorado River Canyon as a worthwhile place to stop but I'd forgotten all about it until I saw the sign. Might be worth a quick stop & a picture, thinks I. First impressions weren't good - the turn off quickly turned to gravel & I could see Indian jewellery stalls all along the carpark. But there was no 'hard sell' & they were perfectly happy to let you walk right past without trying to sell you anything. You had to walk past a few stalls to get to the gap in the fence that allowed access to the canyon & there was no real pathway & only bits of railings, no visitor centre or leaflets or anything.
But holy fcuk, the place just blew me away
Maybe it was because I wasn't expecting anything special, maybe it was because it was so much smaller than the Grand Canyon that you could actually 'take it in' or maybe it was the fact that the sun was lower in the sky than at GC and the colours weren't as washed out. Whatever the reason I just fell in love with the place & couldn't get enough of it. If you're ever in the area don't miss it. If I could only do one or the other I think I'd have to choose Little Colorado, there was just something about the place
Again, the pictures don't do it justice :
After that it was a straight forward run to Tuba where we chose the new Indian owned & run Moencopi Inn. A bit more expensive than some of the places we'd stayed but still cheaper than the other older hotels in town. We had dinner in the Denny's next door where the waitress told us that the two local Hopi villages (about 30 miles down the road) were having kochina dances the following day and we could go and watch.
The hotel was hosting a Prom Night but the receptionist said they weren't expecting trouble, Which was just as well as there were only about 6 police cruisers, 2 ambulances & a single fire truck in attendance
But it's not easy......
