US/Canada 2018

Grand Canyon - Arizona Friday, June 4th. 1982. This is a day late, so I'11 recap on Thursday June 3rd before I talk about the 'humungous Canyon'. We left Phoenix at 8:30am, after rising about 6:30 I think. It was about 75deg F when we left and heading for 100. Heading north from Phoenix you climb into the hills, still stark and barren. The vegetation is low desert bush and cactus until you get up a bit higher. We stopped at a rest area and saw a 40' cactus, with some more in the distance. As we went higher, the desert vegetation disappeared and low bushes were on the south side of the hills, then at about 4,000’ there was nothing in particular. We turned off the freeway onto the Oak Creek Canyon Road. About two miles down the road, we came across red, desert type mountains, the ones with the sides cut off, leaving exposed flutes and buttresses. Like the pictures of the G.C. The town of Sedona and outlying areas were built around the mountains. A church, St Peter's C...

Phoenix - Arizona Wednesday 2nd June 1982. Today we saw the town of Phoenix, or should I say the city of Phoenix. It was like any other big city, except for the palm trees and the occasional glimpse of the hills, barren and brown in the distance. The architecture of the build­ings varied from the modern 'glass tower' to the older 'western' style with solid brick construction and looking very strong and dignified. Like most modern American cities, the main shopping areas were not downtown, there, there were only banks, hotels, and insurance companies and hence not too many people. Those that we did see were dressed in business suits and looked as if they would be right at home behind banking and insurance desks. There seemed to be less 'sleaze' than San Diego, perhaps the western city doesn't have those same sorts of problems. The city area, buildings and people ends fairly quickly, giving away to residential areas, some of which are obviously very expensiv...

Between September 1981 and June 1982, we spent 10 months in San Diego in California. Martin was on a Rotary Scholarship studying Film and Television at San Diego State University. At the end of his course, we hired a motorhome and traveled through four states with Andrew and Nathan. Forty years later I have just transcribed our travel diary to digital. Enjoy