A Chipped Tooth, The Grand Canyon & Gallup, New Mexico!

Day 1 – April 21, 2007

Some people probably would have taken it as a bad sign when a quarter of their molar chipped out of their mouth the night before embarking on such a trip as this. Fortunately, I am not one of them. Also on the fortunate side, is the fact that the root for said tooth was dead so I am in no pain. I do however have to deal with the problem eventually.

After a frantic evening of taking care of last minute packing, Jasmine, Shawn Reece and I were ready to hit the road bright and early in the morning. The plan was to leave at 5 am and in predictable style we left Las Vegas at about 8am. Shawn Reece was the only rested one, but he still managed to take at least five naps in the car today.

Since much of the first day of our trip involved driving Route 66 we decided to stop in on the Route 66 museum in Kingman, Arizona. This was the first of what I am sure will be many museums that we will visit on this trip. Shawn Reece and Jasmine enjoyed the vintage scenery. Overall we enjoyed this look into America before the Interstate system, however we had to hop back onto I-40 towards the Grand Canyon.

About an hour away from the Grand Canyon Shawn Reece allowed his car sickness to get the best of him. Jasmine jumped in like any great mother would do and had it all cleaned up in about ten minutes and we were back on our way.

Despite the fact that we lived only four hours away, none of us had ever been to the Grand Canyon before. I have to say I was definitely impressed. The “big hole in the ground” definitely lived up to the hype. It is a humbling experience when you first walk out to the edge and look down.

We took a shuttle bus about a mile and a half away from the car and decided to hike our way back. This proved to be exactly the right level of difficulty for our day. We saw quite a bit of the Grand Canyon, and saved our legs for another day. Shawn Reece and Big Shawn even took the time to snap photos of each other. Overall, I think that we wished we had more time to see this natural wonder, however we only have two weeks until we need to be at Disney World.

The original plans called for camping in Flagstaff, Arizona. We decided to push ourselves with another couple of hours of driving in order to set ourselves up better for the next couple of days. We drove quite a ways past Flagstaff and finally decided to settle down for the night in a nice little town called Gallup, New Mexico. We arrived here at 9pm so my impression is limited. All I have to say is that they have more laundromats then any place I have ever seen. (This turns out to be lucky since Shawn Reece’s car sickness incident.) Our plans for the next couple of days are still in the air as we decide between a couple of different routes. We are hashing out what we want to see the most. (We wish we still had the month that was originally planned for this leg.)

Well I guess that is all for tonight. Day one couldn’t have gone better. It is amazing how almost nine hours of driving can be tolerable when the scenery all around is new to the eye. Tomorrow will either bring us into Colorado or Roswell, New Mexico. Either way I have to say the day should be interesting. By the way in case you were wondering, we drove by eight McDonalds today (I won’t tell but we might be keeping track.) Thanks for being there!

The Coomer Family.