Travelling Diaries
2011 USA Coast to Coast trip / Day 14 Flagstaff
Previous and next: Day 13 Durango / Day 15 Grand Canyon
4th July 2011
Independence day remembered
When I awoke this morning I turned to Karen and said, "25 years ago today I was a very happy man". She initially was pleased but then said, “Hold on, we were married on the 5th July.” I said, “I know, as I said, 25 years ago today…”
The bruises are starting to come down now. Of course, unlike a lot of men, how can I ever forget our anniversary date as it was the day after Independence Day. How appropriate.
So here we were in America on one of the most important days in their calendar. Being in a hotel you don’t always necessarily get the true sense of the day.
I remember being in Stockholm on business on Dec 13th one year. This is a special day in their calendar when they celebrate St Lucia. As part of this celebration a group of young female hotel staff dress up in traditional white costumes, with one representing St. Lucia wearing a crown of candles and red ribbon round her waist. They then went round the hotel at 6am in the morning and, without knocking, opened up and went into every hotel room singing “Santa Lucia” and leaving a little gift in the room. Luckily I had been warned that this might happen so was suitably prepared (and suitably dressed!). However, I am sure that they must have seen some sights on their tour of the hotel that morning.
There were no such traditions in the US, although I was up and dressed and ready just in case.
Today is, of course, a federal holiday when there are usually many public celebrations. However, due to the dry season all firework displays had been banned in the area to avoid forest fires.
We set off from Durango at around 8.30 on our bus ride to Flagstaff, Arizona, a total of around 311 miles. The bus stopped at the Ute Mountain Truck Stop for a comfort break. This is near to the Ute Reservation which primarily lies in Colorado, but extends over to Utah. The Ute Indians formerly lived across much of the northern Colorado Plateau. The name ‘Ute,’ means "high land" or "land of the sun" - from which the name of the state of Utah was derived. There are a lot of gambling establishments on the reservations.
We then made our way towards Monument Valley to Goosenecks Canyon.
Crossing the border into Utah.
Goosenecks Canyon is a breathtaking meandering canyon created by the San Juan River. It was very hot here, around 100°F (around 38° C).
Our journey was then south west through Monument Valley and the incredible freestanding sandstone rock forms. Monument Valley is located on the northern border of Arizona with southern Utah. The area has been used for such famous old westerns such as John Ford’s Stagecoach and The Searchers. More recently it has featured in the Doctor Who Series.
(doo doo, doo doo, doo, dodoo, dodoo)
(the famous Mexican Hat)
We stopped at the Cameron Trading Post, a Native American Indian lodge and shops containing a large collection of Native American art and gifts.
We finally stopped for lunch at the Goulding’s Trading Post. This is located just north of the Arizona-Utah border, next to the Navajo tribal Park. It was Harry Goulding, the founder of the Post, who had introduced film director John Ford to Monument Valley.
After lunch we set off for Flagstaff. Arriving at our hotel we saw that they had put a sign outside welcoming the Tourettes under our touring name "Great Rails".
(Kalia and Norman were our warm-up act. They were being congratulated for actually turning up - most other acts with any sense refuse to gig with us...)
The hotel was a spread out over a large area and was next door to a huge Recreational vehicle (RV) Park and truckers stop. It also had a couple of large gas stations and a great Steak House called Black Barts, which is where we celebrated the 4th of July. Black Barts was more than just a steak house. Besides having a saloon, the waiters and waitresses were also singers (all from Northern Arizona University where they had to audition for the job) and each night, as they serve you they put on a musical revue. This consisted of mostly show tunes which the staff would either sing solo or with others on stage (accompanied by a great guy on a piano) or sometimes the numbers were choreographed and they could all end up on stage singing. It was absolutely magical. When we arrived they all started off the show with a version of the Star Spangled Banner which was spine tingling.
They then went on to do numbers from almost every musical you could think of. We happened to mention that we like Les Misérables, so one of the staff ended the night singing “Bring Him Home”. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
What a great way to end the 4th July. Tomorrow is going to be a trip to the Grand Canyon and, for those brave enough on their silver wedding anniversary, there was to be a flight over the canyon in a light aircraft!
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