Good deals and great views: Grand Canyon and Canyon de Chelly

Diablo's senior editor takes his sweetheart across Northern Arizona in search of a wedding ring.

I recently got up early on a Monday just to watch the sunrise.

I can’t remember the last time I did this, but since I happened to be visiting the Grand Canyon, it was well worth the effort. From Hopi Point on the West Rim Trail there was a fresh coat of snowy white powder from the previous night’s storm on the ground, but a clear sky above—which lit from night to bright as the sun popped up across the Painted Desert to the East. Beams of light shot across the ancient canyon walls, revealing tiers and elaborate colors. I took a deep breath of cold, fresh air. Not a bad way to start the day.

This quick trip to the Southwest: specifically Grand Canyon National Park, Canyon de Chelly National Monument, and the charming towns of Williams and Flagstaff was a great mini-vacation for my soon-to-be wife and I, before our next big trip. We recently eloped in Bali—read more about that here.

Travel Logistics: East Bay to Grand Canyon is easy to do. We hopped on a Southwest flight from Oakland to Las Vegas. Hit Hwy 40 South in a rental car (a comfy Nissan Maxima on a weekend deal through Enterprise). Drove across Hoover Dam and the 250-some miles to Flagstaff. Day Three, set out on Highway 40 (once historic Route 66) across the high desert, past Petrified Forest National Park and Painted Desert National Monument to Canyon de Chelly, a place of stunning natural beauty. Day Three was a drive across Navajo and Hopi reservation lands, with a few stops to look at some pretty spectacular jewelry and Kachina artwork. Days Four and Five were spent in the Grand Canyon’s National Park’s South Rim village, a drive back to the Vegas airport.

The nice thing about this trip is that the scenery is phenomenal, and it can be done in fewer days if you don’t drive all the way to Canyon de Chelly—though I highly recommend visiting the National Monument and the surrounding area if you have the time.

The Trip:
The main reason we wanted to visit this region was to find my wedding band. We found my fiance's engagement ring the previous summer at the Alameda Antiques Fair, and I wanted my band to come from Northern Arizona due to  my lifelong affection for the area. From a very young age, I've loved the Grand Canyon, and even spent a year in my mid 20s living and working in the National Park and working on my creative writing—and had my first published story in the Arizona Daily Sun.

Excited to be back in the high deserts and forest regions of Arizona, we pulled off in the charming Route 66 town of Williams. It’s just 60 miles from the Grand Canyon’s South Rim entrance, and the place to stay if you want to take the Grand Canyon Railway—a historic Old West locomotive—into the National Park. There’s also some cool cafes (Old Smokey's Pancake House is a must) and bars and quite a few gift stores selling Native American arts, crafts and jewelry. In the very first jewelry store we went to—the Thunder Eagle—Tamara pointed to a gold and silver ring. It fit nicely, and I loved the design. A promising start to say the least. We decided to keep looking—after all, we were just getting started—but I had a good feeling about this ring.

We jumped back in the car and drove 20 or so more miles to Flagstaff, one of my favorite small cities in the country. Located just beneath the San Francisco Peaks—the highest elevation in Arizona—Flagstaff has a combination of forest fresh air, college town progressiveness, Native American culture, and Old West/Route 66 charm.

We checked into the Hotel Weatherford for the night. This historic Old West hotel dates back to the 1890s (Wyatt Earp stayed here), and the rooms have been renovated somewhere between youth hostel and boutique hotel. Downstairs from the rooms (ours was on the hostel side, but quaint and tiny) is Charly’s, a fun bar that books rowdy rock ‘n’ roll on the weekends.

Just down the street is the more upscale Hotel Monte Vista, built in the 1920s. The building is beautiful, and it’s said to be haunted, so I must check it out, overnight, sometime. I know my friends from Monte Vista High School would get a kick out of the cocktail lounge.

There’s no shortage of reasonably-priced motel rooms along Route 66, very close to Flagstaff’s historic downtown.

For a good meal, I recommend one place above all others, because it serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner, delicious and cheap. Macy’s, a European coffee house and roastery, was Arizona’s first specialty coffee roaster and is still going strong some 29 years later. The regulars feel like they’ve been hanging out there since returning from whenever the Grateful Dead or Phish last toured. Seriously delicious gourmet coffee and well-priced Vegan comfort food. My fiance recalls her favorite meal on the entire trip the omelette she had at Macy’s. I'd put their cappuccino up against any in the Bay Area.

I also picked up some used books and cds and a vintage Ghost Rider comic, all for under $10, at Bookman’s, one of the greatest used book stores I’ve ever been to. It's huge and cheap and well-organized, highly browsable. Next door to the Hotel Weatherford, the historic Orpheum Theater has been transformed from a one-screen movie house into a fantastic 750-seat music venue. A Nirvana tribute band was playing there the night we were in town, but Fillmore-worthy acts like Los Lobos and Wilco have played the Orpheum in the past few years. A killer Grateful Dead cover band, Dark Star Orchestra, is playing there on April 3—but unfortunately, the Orpheum is scheduled to close in late April. Hopefully it will re-open soon, it’s a special venue.

We shopped around downtown Flagstaff’s many jewelry stores and saw some beautiful rings but none that had the look or fit of the one back in Williams, so we jumped in the rental car and hit the highway for Canyon de Chelly on the eastern side of Arizona.

The drive to this National Monument park takes about four hours from Flagstaff and it’s very head-clearing landscape, like something out of Dances With Wolves. We listened to some cd’s of Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour, which is highly recommended as company on any road trip.

The Mars-like red rocks of Canyon de Chelly are truly otherworldy. This is a much more compact park than the Grand Canyon, but the scenery is just as spectacular. Also, the park is not nearly as busy. Just before sunset, we took the Rim Drive to see the spectacular Spider Rock—an 800-foot tall spire that looks like it was here left by an alien spaceship. The land is very sacred to the Navajo people of the region, so hiking into the canyon is forbidden. But guided tours of the canyon floor are available and well worth taking a day to experience. From the rim, ruins of ancient dwellings can be observed from well-placed viewfinders. We ended up doing most of our holiday shopping when we ran into a Navajo youth named Rodney Begay (pictured), who was selling beautiful carved pieces depicting Navajo legends drawn on red rocks from the canyon. We also bought my mom a Hogan House miniature, and she was pretty excited to open it on Christmas.

Where to stay: Within the park, the only place to stay is the charming Thunderbird Lodge. Room rates are very affordable in the winter (November–late February), ranging from $63-$95, and $102-$155 in peak season. Thunderbird Lodge’s cafeteria isn’t fancy, but hit the spot after a full day of driving. The tacos, made with Navajo fry bread, were tasty and filling.

I would have liked to stay and explore Canyon de Chelly for several days, but we were on a tight schedule, so we headed West across Navajo and Hopi reservation lands to go to the Grand Canyon. We stopped at various small villages to look at more rings, but still could not find any that matched the gold and silver one back in Williams.

One tip for driving across Native American lands: make sure to gas up the car when you have a chance. There are some vast expanses of open road with no gas stations for many miles, and no signs to warn you the next gas is well past the point that your rental car's fuel light started blinking. I’m usually pretty careful about keeping an eye on the fuel level, but let it slip my mind—and spent about 40 miles sweating bullets as the sun started to set in the West and the gorgeous landscape started looking very cold and very dark. Fortunately—miraculously—we made it to Tuba City and fueled the Nissan up to the top of the tank.

We pulled into the Grand Canyon National Park via the East Rim entrance well after dark and checked into a room in the Maswik Lodge. These modern motel rooms are clean and very reasonable, and great for families. If you’re looking for fancier digs, the historic El Tovar hotel is beautiful, and right on the rim.

Our first day at the Canyon, I got up early to go look at that great big hole in the ground. The Grand Canyon is one of the seven natural wonders of the world, and it’s no wonder why: it’s a breathtaking sight from top to bottom. If you have the time, a great way to hike the Canyon is to take the Bright Angel Trail down to the Indian Gardens rest stop, then head east along the flat and easy-to-hike Tonto Trail. You’re about halfway down to the river at this point and the views are stunning. Take the trail about five miles to meet with the South Kaibab trail, which you can take to go up and out, and catch a shuttle back to the main village.

A much easier easy way to take in Grand Canyon's panoramic magesty is by visiting various lookout points along the South Rim Trail. That’s how we did it on this trip. The winds were whipping cold and fierce by the Canyon’s edge, so we decided to make the most of architect Mary Colter’s delightful rim buildings.

On the East side of the South Rim is the Desert View Watchtower (pictured at right). Built in 1932, the inside of the multistory tower is painted with Hopi imagery. Thin, curved staircases take you to an observation deck with incredible views.

Back in the Grand Canyon Village, Colter’s 1905 Hopi House (left) has a busy gift shop, and the source of several holiday presents for my friends and family. At the rim outside Hopi House, I snapped off my favorite Canyon pics from the trip, as a blue sky revealed itself between the canyon rim and a layer of puffy clouds.

We had two nights at the Canyon so we saved our big dinner for the second night, and splurged for a $100 meal at El Tovar Dining Room, a charming woody restaurant with excellent food and service. Most of the food at Grand Canyon is off the coffee shop/cafeteria variety, but the El Tovar is a genuine fine dining experience. It’s also fun for me, because I worked in the back of this restaurant many nights as a cashier, but have only eaten in the dining room a few times. There are still a few waiters working at the El Tovar who were there when I worked there, so it was great fun to catch up—these guys know the Canyon from top to bottom.

While we were eating dinner, the Canyon’s first big snowfall of the winter came down. We woke up to find a white blanket covering the South Rim. As my fiance slept, I quietly snuck out to take in the sunrise at Hopi Point. This perfect start to the day would only get better, as we drove the 60 miles back to Williams to buy my ring. A few months later, Tamara placed it on my finger—and now I carry a bit of the Grand Canyon, and a reminder of our love, wherever I go.
 

Posted at 11:26 AM in Diablo Getaways | Permalink