Driving Miss Katie, Day 3

We left Albuquerque around 9:00 this morning heading towards Flagstaff, Arizona. Originally we had intended to go to the Grand Canyon, but logistics got in the way. There were time constraints, for one. And when we called to see if we could get reservations at one of the lodges within the national park, we were told that there was only one room left at a lodge about a half mile from the rim. Most of the other lodges are right on the rim. The lack of rooms got us thinking about crowds, and a google search provided reviews of people saying that the park was packed. Of course - it is Easter week! We also don't like to be too far from the car as we have a lot of Katie's personal items in it.

So we regrouped and decided to go to Sedona instead. Oak Creek Canyon, on the way from Flagstaff to Sedona, comes highly recommended as a scenic route, and Sedona is supposed to be nice to visit. I thought we would fill up the gas tank in Flagstaff, where you turn off to head south. But that particular exit had no stations or places to eat. Do you know that there are no stations on the canyon drive? I will definitely be alerting others to that fact on Tripadvisor. We coasted into Sedona on fumes! Besides the twisting, steep, drop off the edge of the earth road, fear of running out of gas had me gripping the steering wheel the whole way. Luckily it is downhill to Sedona, so I was able to coast most of the way.

The scenery was quite beautiful, and Sedona is in a fantastic location. But the town itself reminded me of Branson with round abouts. There were tourists everywhere and the traffic was horrific. We only stopped in town long enough to gas up and grab a sandwich. After getting our fill of photographs in the national forest, we headed back north to Flagstaff and trusty Interstate 40. So weird that you only take two interstates (44 & 40) all the way from St. Louis to Los Angeles. We wanted to put some more miles behind us so that we wouldn't be facing 7 plus hours of driving tomorrow, so we drove on to Kingman, Arizona to spend the night. We should have about 320 more miles to go tomorrow. That is easy compared to what we have been doing. The end is in sight!