Finished with a 5-day fast, appointments set for Caroline’s next bunionectomy, the calcium test on my heart was done yesterday, new batches of homemade granola and Burmese pickled ginger done, and some important changes to our Oregon trip next month means we can get out of Phoenix for the weekend and feel accomplished as we take off. Where to this time? North, with hopes that the weather remains pleasant where we’re going because the Sunday morning forecast suggests it could get down to the upper 30s or about 3c with a chance for light rain until mid-day. Good thing we have warm clothes, ponchos, and some plans for enjoying ourselves. Where exactly are we going? A small place on the map called Marble Canyon.

Regarding this being “Trip 17,” late last year, I put together an itinerary that planned for us to take 26 excursions out of Phoenix this year, but we won’t make it. We’ve already missed 5 of those trips for one reason or another. Two of them were from August while Caroline was recovering from her foot surgery, and that will happen again in December. We know we have at least one more trip that is a certainty, the 12 days up on the Oregon coast, and hopefully, we can squeeze two more in, maybe even a third. So, we’ll complete the year, having taken between 18 and 21 trips, equaling about 85 days out and about, which is not bad from my view.

And what about today’s lead photo? That’s 6 pounds of homemade granola that just came out of the dehydrator after two and a half days in one of our favorite pieces of Ute pottery. We picked it up about 15 years ago, somewhere near Towaoc, Colorado, from Ute Mountain Pottery. Any other specifics are lost to time. What we do know is that the shop on the side of the road no longer exists so we won’t be adding to the collection any time soon.

As fall descends upon the Northern Hemisphere, the sun dips below the horizon even earlier, and sometimes, we forget to take that into account as we head out on the road. Had I considered that I probably should have made a point of stopping before reaching Flagstaff because after enjoying our dinner there (a good Mexican meal at Martanne’s), we were chasing the last glimmer of the sun still up in the sky, but nothing down upon the earth. The light was fading fast, and the early evening could be seen low in the sky. [I would like to add that since we drove north on the I-17, there really was no chance to pull over for a photo before Flag anyway, although the views are always spectacular. This time, we even saw a herd of antelopes in the distance. – Caroline]

It was dark, really dark, when we reached the Navajo Bridge in Marble Canyon. While it can’t be seen in this photo, the Milky Way sits above the low bright spot left of center.

And this is our destination for the evening out in the middle of nowhere, Arizona. Just one night we’ll stay here at the Marble Canyon Lodge. Behind us is the road that leads to Lees Ferry and Mile Marker Zero, a.k.a. the beginning of the Grand Canyon National Monument that we’ll be visiting, along with a couple of other places starting tomorrow morning.