Attractions That Could Have Been Done at Home

Eating breakfast at Einstein Bros, we then hopped over the custard store on the corner of the strip mall. We devoured the pecan custard as we stretched our legs on a walk around the mall’s stores. We took time to wash the dirt and grime off our our noble steed, Royal. The Diesel Jetta came with that name branded to it's rear from an unknown owner of it's past. It's funny because it's not the name of a dealership, someone actually took the time to put the name Royal in chrome letters below the name Jetta on the rear. Our day was spent traveling through the mountains and open land of Arizona. We looked out over Lake Mead and wound our way down the huge mountainous slopes. I was driving and Chad was dozing off and on. A few times I pushed his head back against the seat as he was slumped forward resting. Chad woke right before a sign that read “Visitors Information” and we both agreed to stop. I had pulled off and hung a left down a road towards what I thought was the visitors center. Miles later, we realized that this wasn’t right. Cresting a hill, we entered the Town of Chloride and instantly regretted this decision. There was junk strewn all around on both sides of the street and the road led us to what seemed to be the only intersection in town. A sketchy bar, the sketchiest bar I have ever seen, on the corner read “tourist information” in hand painted letters. Metal cans, barbed wire, and chunks of god-knows-what were strewed across the yard of house directly across from the bar. I recognized an old white 4-legged washer sitting on the ground surrounded by miss-placed artifacts. Never mind grass, the owner of the labeled “Old Red House” didn’t or had not seemed to care about disposing of any of their trash that laid in the yard. Chad later found out that the town Chloride was a ghost town and was kept up by only a hand full of people. So much for helpful information about the Grand Canyon. I high-tailed it out of there with also another tally added to my engine kills. The rain was coming down gently and we made it into Flagstaff, Arizona around dark. Tired and hungry, I was no good at direction and we made a few U-turns on our way to dinner. We ate delicious Thai curry and a noodle dish. It was Christmas eve and there were hardly any people out but this was also due to a “terrible” storm that was about to hit. The waiter said this storm would be one of the worst they have seen in a while. Chad was really itching to use his snow tires and we both weren’t worried by the news.

After dinner, we hit a movie. Wow, that’s cliché. We waited for over an hour in the movie theater until our showing of The Assassins Creed. We stalled by hitting the arcade and only then regretted not gambling a little so that we could have some extra spending cash to put into the Jurassic Park game. By the time we were at our car again, the show had fallen heavily and it was deep. We made camp in a nearby Holiday Inn and Christmas story jokes were made about “not having room at the Inn”. The snow layer made nice camouflage and we slept soundly unnoticed. Happy Christmas Eve. This was the most uneventful day we have had so far and it didn’t feel as if we were on vacation.