In the spring of 2006 my brother Alex and I loaded up his Mazda 6 in Arizona and drove home. Not the fast way. The long way, through six states and across 1,446 miles of the American Southwest, stopping at as many national parks, monuments, state parks, and roadside attractions as we could fit into the trip. The Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Monument Valley, Canyonlands, Arches, Four Corners, and Mesa Verde were the headliners, but the road between them had plenty of its own stories. Six states. One week.
Twenty years is a long time. Half a life by some measures. A lot has changed since that trip, for Arizona, for my brother and me. College degrees, careers, relationships, jobs, a move to Arizona and eventually back again. He dropped me off in Kansas City on his way home to Iowa and we both went on to live entire lives since that week.
I spent seven years crisscrossing that state after that first drive through it. Hiked down into Havasupai. Paddled the Salt River for sunrise and sunset on the water. Met work friends and mentors who are still in my life today. The state that surprised me through a car window in 2006 became home for a good stretch of my life.
That younger version of me had no idea any of that was coming. As Jake and Elwood Blues would say when their mission hit a roadblock, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.” That has never felt more true than when I look back at the road that started here.
This is that trip. Six posts covering the whole thing, starting in Prescott, Arizona.
Day one started in Prescott. We left early, pointed south, and headed over the mountains toward Oak Creek Canyon.
Prescott
Before this trip my experience of Arizona was Tucson years prior, Phoenix, and the shuttle ride between them. Flat, hot, and brown in every direction. I had no reason to think it was anything else. Oak Creek Canyon was the first thing that made me question that assumption. The road drops down into it and the walls come up around you and suddenly you are somewhere entirely different. Red rock, green trees, water. The desert high country. I had no idea Arizona had any of this, and it changed the way I thought about the whole state. I have spent a lot of time out there since, the Mogollon Rim, the Prescott valley, trips with friends. It started that day on that road.
Oak Creek Canyon
Jerome was next. An old copper mining town clinging to the side of Cleopatra Hill with views across the Verde Valley that seemed to go on forever. We stopped for lunch at the Mile High Inn and Grill, a place built so close to the edge of the road it felt like it might slide down the mountain at any moment. Burgers, sodas, and a story about the place being haunted.
Ten minutes at each and you already know you are coming back. Oak Creek and Jerome are both still on that list.
Jerome
Arizona Scenery
The Grand Canyon was our last stop before Sedona.
My Alex had spent the last year living flying, and playing around this landscape. For me it was all new. I had seen mountains growing up, trips to Colorado, travel through Italy and Switzerland. I thought I had a sense of what dramatic landscape looked like.
The Grand Canyon is not that.
Nothing prepares you for it. Not photographs, not descriptions, not anyone who has tried to explain it. You can read the numbers, a mile deep, eighteen miles wide in places, 277 miles long. None of it lands until you are standing on the South Rim looking down and your brain simply cannot process the scale.
We pulled in around midday and walked to the rim. Growing up in Northwest Missouri you develop a baseline for what the world looks like. Flat horizons, river valleys, gentle hills. Mountains had already pushed that baseline. The Grand Canyon broke it. There is no Midwest reference point that helps you make sense of it. You just stand there and let it work on you.
We were not there to hike. We walked the rim, stood quietly in the way you do when a place is too big for conversation, and got back in the car. Even in the car there was not much conversation. Just, wow!
Grand Canyon
We ended the day in Sedona as planned. We had booked the hotel months in advance. Even in 2006 finding a room in Sedona in summer required planning ahead. It has only gotten harder since. It was busy and built for tourists in a way that Jerome and Prescott were not. We got in, found the hotel and settled in for the night. We still had a long way to go. Kansas for me, Iowa for Alex.
Sedona
The time-lapse video below covers day one of the trip.
Early start the next morning. A lot of road and Zion ahead.
Next in the series: Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon. Two of the most iconic stops on the trip and two very different kinds of overwhelming. That one publishes June 26.
