What A Hole

As we checked out of the hotel in Flagstaff, we ran into another biker – Mike from San Francisco. Mike, who rides a Ducatti, generously invited us to stay with him if we were in San Francisco. It turns out he has been to New Zealand and one or two people were nice to him so he wanted to return the favour. Mike is an ex Navy diver and spent some time in Papua New Guinea – as did we. Ric’s Dad and an Uncle are also ex US Navy so we had some things in common to talk about.

The Grand Canyon is … well… grand. It is huge and beautiful and awesome and has to be seen to be believed. We rode there from Flagstaff on a cool but cloudless day to arrive at the Grand Canyon mid morning. Beware! Some of the businesses our out to fleece you! We stopped at McDonalds for a coffee and were charged US$4.50 for two very mediocre cups of filter coffee. We also had to pay $24.00 to enter the Grand Canyon National Park but to be fair, this was for a 7 Day pass. A single day pass is not an option.

As we approached the Grand Canyon, Jenny became more and more nervous. She is not at all comfortable with heights, or more specifically, she hates big and sudden drops. And guess what? The Grand Canyon is the biggest, suddenist drop on the planet. Yes, the views are nothing less than stunning and while you should check the small selection of photos on our site, believe us when we say that these in no way do this geological masterpiece justice. For sure, you cannot get any sense of the sheer depth of the canyon. Jenny was brave enough to get reasonably close to the edge to get her photo taken but you can see she did not enjoy it. In fact, two seconds after the photo was taken she was on the other side of the track – as far from the edge as she could get, clinging to the fence. She was not alone. It does take a lot of courage to confront your fears like this and she did very well.

We left the Grand Canyon but as the road followed the canyon edge for about 25 miles, Jenny had a death grip on the pillion passengers panic rails the whole time. In fact, her fingerprints are now permanently embedded into the plastic. We stopped at one of the scenic viewing stops for another look at the Canyon. We should mention that this is Navajo Country and the Navajo have set up stalls at every scenic spot selling jewellery and ceramics made on the reservation – really nice stuff, too. We had just pulled up at one of the spots when our new best friend, Dan from New Jersey turned up. Dan had been riding almost as long as we had and seemed genuinely impressed that we had clocked up so many miles and had been riding for so many days.

We bought some Navajo jewellery and said goodbye to Dan and headed off to follow Highway 89A – a designated Scenic Highway. Again, check out the photos we took, especially at Marble Canyon. While Ric was admiring the beautiful surroundings, you can see that Jenny was praying that this ordeal from Hell would end soon. On the other side of the Canyon, we filled up on gas and spoke to the Ranger who tried with only limited success to assure Jenny that the road ahead was really pretty good and that the chances of her dying were actually pretty low. He didn’t help.