Up really early this morning to catch the flight to Arizona. Bring on the t-shirt and shorts, it is going to be 27C there. Our cab driver, Victor, was the coolest guy, Seattle born and breed and his stories were very entertaining. Like us he enjoys playing in the snow!!
We took off in the very back row of the plane. Seattle is a nice city and seeing it from the air gave us good perspective of all the surrounding water.
The best thing was that flew really close to Mount St. Helens. This firecracker erupted at 8:32 Sunday morning, May 18, 1980. Shaken by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, the north face of this tall symmetrical mountain collapsed in a massive rock debris avalanche. Nearly 230 square miles of forest was blown down or buried beneath volcanic deposits. At the same time a mushroom-shaped column of ash rose thousands of feet skyward and drifted downwind, turning day into night as dark, gray ash fell over eastern Washington and beyond. The eruption lasted 9 hours, but Mount St. Helens and the surrounding landscape were dramatically changed within moments.
Now you can clearly see the blown off north face and remaining crater rim. The mountain was covered in snow, and the lava flows, tree-less, are also covered. One geological monument I wasn’t expecting to see.
We got to Phoenix in Arizona. It was great, the t-shirt was donned and it was a warm and beautiful 27C. We got our little car with Texan number plates and took off along the I-10 and eventually on to the I-17 heading north. The interchanges were like curling clover leaves and there was exit to go to Los Angeles.
Traffic was slow but it was Thanksgiving Eve, and everyone was heading to spend the day with their families. While we were stopped in traffic Tan saw a sign “If you are backed up as this freeway, visit ….. (a septic specialist)”.
Not far out of Phoenix, the stereo-typical cactus appeared, and then another, then there were hills sides of them. It looked like something out a Western movie. We stopped at a servo, got some tucker and snapped a quick shot of an Indian.
We were amazed by the nunchakas, swords, blow dart guns and knifes readily available along with ham and cheese sandwiches.
We powered along in awe of the scenery, it was more hilly than we expected. The road was dual lanes to Flagstaff and we could travel at 75 miles per hour!! Speedy! At Flagstaff, we saw the sign “Grand Canyon” along with Arizona Ski Bowl.
Yep.. it’s desert but further north we get higher and it snows (enough to ski on). One pass north of Flagstaff was over 8,000 feet high, higher than Australia’s highest peak.
On arrival to the Grand Canyon village, 370km later, it was chilly, a nice sunny 3C. So much for shorts and t-shirts, we didn’t think it was going to be this chilly, worse still is that we left all our cold weather gear back in Canada.
The sun had just set but we still wanted to see the canyon in twilight. We hit the road, found Mather Point, and were amazed by the canyon in the twilight and under the shine of the moon. This snippet was enough to whet our appetite for tomorrow.
Beers and wine in the Grand Hotel, very different to the one in Kalgoorlie, where Tan sat in the saddle chair. Traditional country music hits such as Rawhide and some Johnny Cash songs graced our ears.
We took off in the very back row of the plane. Seattle is a nice city and seeing it from the air gave us good perspective of all the surrounding water.
The best thing was that flew really close to Mount St. Helens. This firecracker erupted at 8:32 Sunday morning, May 18, 1980. Shaken by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, the north face of this tall symmetrical mountain collapsed in a massive rock debris avalanche. Nearly 230 square miles of forest was blown down or buried beneath volcanic deposits. At the same time a mushroom-shaped column of ash rose thousands of feet skyward and drifted downwind, turning day into night as dark, gray ash fell over eastern Washington and beyond. The eruption lasted 9 hours, but Mount St. Helens and the surrounding landscape were dramatically changed within moments.
Now you can clearly see the blown off north face and remaining crater rim. The mountain was covered in snow, and the lava flows, tree-less, are also covered. One geological monument I wasn’t expecting to see.We got to Phoenix in Arizona. It was great, the t-shirt was donned and it was a warm and beautiful 27C. We got our little car with Texan number plates and took off along the I-10 and eventually on to the I-17 heading north. The interchanges were like curling clover leaves and there was exit to go to Los Angeles.
Traffic was slow but it was Thanksgiving Eve, and everyone was heading to spend the day with their families. While we were stopped in traffic Tan saw a sign “If you are backed up as this freeway, visit ….. (a septic specialist)”.Not far out of Phoenix, the stereo-typical cactus appeared, and then another, then there were hills sides of them. It looked like something out a Western movie. We stopped at a servo, got some tucker and snapped a quick shot of an Indian.
We were amazed by the nunchakas, swords, blow dart guns and knifes readily available along with ham and cheese sandwiches.We powered along in awe of the scenery, it was more hilly than we expected. The road was dual lanes to Flagstaff and we could travel at 75 miles per hour!! Speedy! At Flagstaff, we saw the sign “Grand Canyon” along with Arizona Ski Bowl.
Yep.. it’s desert but further north we get higher and it snows (enough to ski on). One pass north of Flagstaff was over 8,000 feet high, higher than Australia’s highest peak.On arrival to the Grand Canyon village, 370km later, it was chilly, a nice sunny 3C. So much for shorts and t-shirts, we didn’t think it was going to be this chilly, worse still is that we left all our cold weather gear back in Canada.
The sun had just set but we still wanted to see the canyon in twilight. We hit the road, found Mather Point, and were amazed by the canyon in the twilight and under the shine of the moon. This snippet was enough to whet our appetite for tomorrow.
Beers and wine in the Grand Hotel, very different to the one in Kalgoorlie, where Tan sat in the saddle chair. Traditional country music hits such as Rawhide and some Johnny Cash songs graced our ears.
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