The day starts like any other day on the streets of Phoenix, Arizona. Shortly after 5:30 in the morning, Caroline and I find ourselves checking out the Christmas lights. We won’t have a lot of time to dawdle as after the sun rises, one of us will be staying home, and the other of us will be heading up the road to Utah, as why not?

Brinn shows up on time, but before we start the endurance test of our butts, backs, and hips, we have to stop in at King Coffee, a regular stop for coffee for me and occasionally for Brinn too. This is not King Coffee.

As a matter of fact, we’re no longer anywhere near Phoenix but well north of Flagstaff by this time. An abandoned old motel in Gray Mountain has become a bit of an art project, well, the outside, anyway.

The inside of what remains of this roadside lodge is now questionable at best, sketchy at least, and interesting in some weird way like so many of the rotting remains from another age one finds while driving around America.

Fresh blacktop slicing a deep black trail across the red and gray desert makes for an interesting contrast, but the poverty up here still retains the same bleak hostility of neglect that economic isolation puts on the population of these native lands.

We were able to catch some rafters passing under the Navajo Bridge that crosses the Colorado River here in Northern Arizona. Minutes ago, we were able to watch one condor perched on the girders of the opposite bridge while four others were flying about further downriver. With five of these birds on view and sadly unable to capture an adequate image of these majestic rare birds, I’d like to think that their reintroduction to the Canyon system 25 years ago is looking successful.

I tried yelling down to this private trip of river rafters, but their music was too loud to hear anything else, so I don’t believe they heard me informing them about condors just ahead.

There are people who raft rivers who would look at this photo and know exactly where I’m going next.

Yep, Lees Ferry, a.k.a. mile marker zero in the Grand Canyon National Park and the starting point for Colorado River adventures that depart from right here.

The first riffle of white water in the Grand Canyon. Eleven years ago, when we first passed over this minor speed bump, from my perspective in the front of a dory, this was as terrifying as anything I could imagine. It turned out that this was nothing compared to what lay ahead. Read about that day starting at THIS LINK.

Our little two-day road trip is taking us up through the Vermillion Cliffs and will have us pass by the shuttered-for-the-season turn-off to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Good thing Lefevre Overlook isn’t popular with influencers yet because when Brinn and I pulled in, there was nobody else here enjoying the view. It wasn’t for lack of traffic as all day we’d been surrounded by those racing to get somewhere fast while this gray-haired old man plodded along, oblivious to how many middle fingers might have been thrown my way. The truth is that I don’t have time to race across the landscape failing to see more than a few of the details as one never knows how often they’ll pass through parts of a country not exactly convenient to visit.

The view from Lefevre Ridge.

Brinn in Utah. Yesterday, while he and I were out between Superior and Globe down in central Arizona, he’d mentioned Utah a few times, so I had to ask, why? He’d never been to Utah, which was when, after a few minutes of thinking about that, I asked if he’d like to head up this weekend. Obviously, he agreed.

While we didn’t take the opportunity to have some “Ho-Made” pies, we did fill up on gas at the station next door, snapped a photo, and waved to our left as Zion National Park was not on today’s agenda. We are still heading north. According to an old blog post, Caroline and I first passed this place nearly 20 years ago.

Bryce National Park seems to come to mind.

After our stop at the old motel, a half-hour at Navajo Bridge, another half-hour (or so) detouring to Lees Ferry, and lunch at the Marble Canyon Restaurant, the remaining light of day is quickly escaping us.

While hints of what was to come tomorrow were able to be gleaned in the last moments of twilight, we arrived in Bryce just outside the national park when it was well dark and getting mighty cold.