Before Phoenix we ended up staying at the Grand Canyon. Everything is expensive. The food. The RV Park. Entrance to the canyon. Gas is marked up .40-.50c.
I get it though. They’re charging that because people are willing to pay. At the RV Park it was full of Germans and French people in rental RVs. While I was taking a shit there I got to listen to two German guys chattering back and forth at each other. Something about the showers being really cold and his friend giving him shit about it and laughing. The park was pretty nice although you had to insert quarters for the shower. You’re spending just short of a room for a night and you’re paying for 2 minute increments of shower.
Anyways, the pictures that we took of the canyon don’t really do it justice. It really is breathtaking. And not just because of the elevation and walk up. The first few looks gave me vertigo. I had to step back and just kind of take it in. Yet again, in my ignorance I had an idea of what the canyon was going to be like. I thought the canyon was going to be surrounded by desert, but it’s about a mile up from sea level on the south rim and surrounded by trees. It really was worth the trip. I am a little disappointed that we didn’t go to the 4-corners but I could see coming through for that. So we saw the sights, took the photos, and bought the post cards. After that we decided to hoof it. It’s a bit like Niagara Falls. You see it and peer around, read up on it a bit and go.. “okay”.
The drive was about 5 hours. Before pulling into the city I wanted to fill up the tank. We got to a station and it was diesel but only at one pump. People kept cock blocking the bus. It took hopping out of the bus and asking someone to move so we could fill up. Anyways we pulled up to Phil’s friend Dave’s place. He has a fire hydrant in front of his house so we had to park on the side. Eventually (tues? wed?) the cops came and asked us to move it due to a complaint. I don’t know what busybody fucks call in complaints for this stuff.. but oh well. We were by no means blocking the street but c’est la vie.
We met Dave and his dog Mika (an akida). Akida’s are big quiet dogs. Friendly but protective. Dave had bought his place a few years earlier and is in the process of fixing it up. He has a pool but didn’t have it ready for the season yet. We spent a lot of our time working and playing some video games. Phil and Matt ran some needed errands on Monday.
Regarding parking, we moved the bus to a public park on Wednesday. There was a church of LDS just north of Dave’s place though. Matt and I dropped by and asked if we could park there until Friday night. The 2 gentlemen who were working the church’s employment office said it would be okay and that they would talk to the Bishop. We left immensely relieved. We were getting ready to walk and pick up our bikes from the shop but instead grabbed the bus from the park, grabbed the bikes and then parked at the church. We left signs taped up with my phone number and a note asking to call before towing.
On Thursday Matt saw that the Arizona Diamondbacks were playing a game. So we figured it was a good excuse to go into the city. We ended up calling a ‘limo’ service which is a taxi by the hours. Cost us $30 to get into the city. We scalped 3 bleacher tickets for $32 total. Drank some expensive stadium beers and split early from the game to meet our buddy Zach out @ RA Sushi on Mill St. We hung out with Zach and shot the shit and caught up. Got drunk on Sake.
Mill is near the college so its full of kids and shitty college bars. I ended up asking a bouncer at a bar with a line down the block if that “is the entrance for adults?”.
We ended up calling it a night around 12:30 local.. which is 3:30 EST. Got back after 4’ish. Fuuuuuuucking mistake. We all were waking up @ 8am local.
Friday rolls around and I get a call from an Arizona area code. Some member of the church started asking me why I thought I could park there. I let him know we spoke with 2 people at the employment office and he asked me for names. I unfortunately didn’t think to ask for their names. At least it was Friday. So I let him know we would move it.
We were planning on leaving on Saturday so we got packed up. Headed up over to an In-n-Out burgers. Time to head east across the city and over to Scottsdale!
