Ain't life Grand.

This morning, I got up and left before dawn and set off for my next destination. 

I had a pretty crap night's sleep for several reasons.  Partly other guests slamming doors at midnight and flushing the hotel's turbine-powered toilets at 1 and 3am, but mostly due to trains on the railroad across the street driving past very slowly at irregular intervals.

Trains in the US go quite slowly.  American drivers aren't really geared up for trains, and the stupid crossing rules probably mean that cars have the right of way and can turn left and scatter pedestrians through a flashing railroad crossing.  For this reason, when an American train goes anywhere near a road, it beeps its horn constantly.  Locomotive horns are loud.  They don't ban beeping in the middle of the night.  I awoke with the 'Shit, where am I?'s a few times last night.  Wasn't sad to see the back of that place.

Soon after departing I remembered that I had read the weather forecast for this morning and that is was to have been -4°C last light.  I have no idea whether they salt the roads here or not, or how Camry's tyres will perform in the cold.  I drove gingerly, although I had a deadline.

Getting up early wasn't for nothing.  I had a little treat for myself planned.

As day broke I was nearing my destination, some 80 miles from Flagstaff and deep inside the Grand Canyon National Park...

...There's an airport!

Airport security isn't quite up to the same standards here.  You can't quite wander on to the ramp - they wouldn't be able to take your money or weigh you if you did that!

After check-in the pilots led us to our aircraft.  A 'Vistaliner' - which they make sound quite fancy, extolling its STOL capabilities and excellent low-speed lift characteristics.  However it's a de Havilland Twin Otter on which which someone has standardised the avionics and made the windows bigger.

The main reason I know about them is that Loganair does scheduled flights to a beach on Barra with them.

This airport does fixed-wing and helicopter flights.  Helicopters are exciting, however they don't fly using any kind of physics principles that anyone can properly explain.  They utilise huge amounts of power and do not produce a lot of lift.  They also don't fly very fast but use a lot of fuel, require frightening amounts of maintenance and go wrong a lot.

A fixed wing aircraft that can land on remote island beaches.  That's the sort of aircraft I'd like to be in if there is any kind of problem.

I deliberately chose an early morning flight because I figured that many people wouldn't have bothered their arse to get out of bed.  I was right, we took off with 6 passengers on board including me.  I got the exit seat, which was awesome.

It's a friendly little aircraft.  I like how the pilots hold hands when setting take-off power.

Nice little airport.  Strange thing to have in the middle of a national park, but quite handy.

After take off, we flew across a bit of plateau.

Then we turned and flew over the edge.

I'll let the rest of these photos speak for themselves.

Grand Camry Airlines.

This morning's flight was genuinely one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had.  The light was great for photos, the weather was nice, it was smooth, the plane was quiet, everyone was appreciative.  I loved it.

If you ever get an opportunity to see the Grand Canyon from the air.  Do it.

On the drive back, I watched the weather deteriorate and I soon discovered the perils of detouring 50 miles off your planned route when you are at 6000ft.

It started to snow.  Now I don't mind a bit of slush on the road, however I had to start thinking about what I was going to do if it got worse.

It got worse.  This is the Interstate!

I had a think, turned on the radio to wait for some weather information.  I knew I had plenty of warm clothes in the back and most of a tank of petrol.  I knew I had an apple and some cereal bars and the best part of a Gallon of water so could comfortably manage overnight.  I knew the road wasn't going to get much higher, but I wasn't sure how long it was going to be before it started descending. 

I made some 35mph progress and glanced at Sat Nav who was telling me their was over 200 miles to go.

Then suddenly the road did descend, a weather report came on saying that they weren't expecting any of the snow to last for any length of time today and the sun came out.

And literally within 2 or 3 miles I was staring out into an arid Arizona desert again.