Dear oh deer.....

Well a good start to the morning.....I managed to pour blueberry waffle mix into the waffle maker rather than plain. Never mind it was still quite nice, followed this up with scrambled egg, sausages and, check this, some form of bacon potato and green chilli stew, very nice. Well off on the road again Gallup is a nice small town, lots of Native Americans..... Some of the famous 66 Motels like The Blue Spruce are obviously now low cost housing judging by the guys carrying in a large case of bud into their room at 8.30am......and before any one comments......one of the guys was drinking a can at the time. We had seen a couple of trains yesterday that was obviously a warm up for today. In the space of half an hour we had seen

another 3 long trains, at least 1 of these was over a mile long.....The train action carried on for most of the day. So we gas up for $17, and off we go leaving Gallup and picking up some great scenery again As we get to the state line there are a lot of Indian Enterprises tucked up against the base of a cliff, A majority of these pay tribute to or are allegedly descended from Chief Yellow Horse. Perched up on the cliffs are an assortment of plastic animals and birds including some very shoddy looking deer. We are in Arizona now another time zone so we put our clocks back another hour, we are now 8 hours behind the time at home. From here on in there are many Indian Arts / Gift shops many abandoned. This is the Navajo Reservation and there are lots of warnings in our guide to respect their private property. The weather is a little cloudy at times but the temperature still rises to 83F.
Continuing on into Arizona we go through Houck, here there is an abandoned fort. It's called Fort Courage and was built as a replica of the Fort in a 60's TV show as some sort of trading post / visitor attraction . We moved on and took a trip to the Petrified Forest National Park we went to the visitor centre and watched a short film but looking into it you need at least a couple of hours to just see a

section of the trail so reluctantly we didn't enter the park proper and headed back to Route 66. On to Holbrook the home of the Famous Wigwam Motel, each wigwam styled room has an old style car parked outside for effect. Across the road is a blast from the past Safeway !! Well our rooms for the next four nights have microwaves so we can get some more food and we could do with grabbing some more beers as most hotels haven't been near to or had bars so in we go......a lot more expensive than Walmart but some great offers for Safeway Club Members. A pop into Jim and Aggies Café as recommended by our guide book.......Must have been a while since it had been recommended it was very run down and the carpet.....YES carpet was sticky in places. Needless to say we didn't eat here made do with a Pepsi, Whilst paying the bill the owner explained that her parents who previously owned the café inspired the characters of the town founders in the Film......yes you've guessed it Cars. To be fair there was a letter and some original sketches from the Pixar team to authenticate this. So the visit was a result after all.
Onwards ever onwards to Jackrabbit.....a famous gift shop and one of the most successful marketing stories around. I still can't get my head around how this gift shop gets it's own spot on the map and Exit off the Interstate?
Next stop is a short detour to Meteor Crater.... The most perfectly preserved Meteor Crater on earth. A little expensive but a once in a lifetime opportunity. The Crater is a mile across and just shy of 600ft deep. Putting this into perspective if the inside of the Crater was a football stadium you could fit 20 pitches on the floor and 2 million people could watch the games. On top of the Crater it is exceptionally windy. The complex offers a couple of hours entertainment but we watch the film view the crater and spend a few minutes in the museum still we both thought it was worth the money.
On the road again Two Guns an abandoned tourist trap is now in private ownership and our guide warns not to visit so we give it a wide berth and if we aren't visiting Two Guns then we aren't visiting Twin Arrows either, wouldn't want to discriminate against either the cowboys or Indians lol, it's just another abandoned Trading Post with a photo op, so on to Flagstaff. Some bits to see here but we miss a couple as it appears to be rush hour the traffic through the town is very busy.
Travelling on through Flagstaff back onto the open road Route 66 takes us through a lovely wooded area this is the last section the route before we turn on to Highway 64 that takes us to The Grand Canyon. Driving down the road through the woods......Roadkill 3.....This time it's serious!!! 2 deer bound out of the woods I swerve and brake 1 deer bounds out of the way the other jumps into my path, bang the first thing Donna sees is the head passing the wing mirror as it bounces off us back towards the woods. I pull over a few yards down the road.....followed after a couple of vehicles by a large white van with flashing lights!! Luckily the lights were orange and it turns out the guy works for the Highways Department. The guy has pulled over to check we are OK having seen what happened from a couple of cars back. Well luckily we are both fine, a little shaken but fine. I ask the guy if I need to report it to the police...not sure if I could be up on a murder rap, he advises me that there is no need but did I need any help getting anywhere, I said I just needed to get in touch with the rental company. Well we might be fine but the car on the other hand has damage to the bonnet, bumper and front passenger side wing.....and the nice addition of some deer fur between the bonnet and wing oooops. The car is still drivable so the rental company want me to go to Las Vegas or Phoenix to swap the vehicle as there isn't one available at Flagstaff.....so I have to arrange a swap to suit myself at Vegas or Flagstaff after our helicopter trip tomorrow. Whilst we were stranded trying to sort out next steps and find the paperwork that we had managed to bury in the bottom of one of our suitcases Donna got eaten alive by mosquitoes so itch itch itch.

So continuing on to The Grand Canyon, my co-pilot sat in the back as her door no longer opens, driving carefully as there is still another 25 miles of deer country ahead and another 50 niles to go after that and I am not 100% if there is any unseen damage to the car. However the car handles well and we manage to make it to Grand Canyon in the dark with no further incident. So we get booked in to The Grand Canyon Plaza.......guess what no microwave, on re-reading the spec the microwaves are only in Suites and we have got a deluxe room doh...Cheese sandwich tonight then......
Well it's certainly been an eventful day today let's hope tomorrow is just special....for the right reasons.
Oh there was one other really positive thing about today.....after waiting 6 hours I find out that the mighty Foxes have won their first ever Champions League match away at FC Brugge 3-0 whoop whoop!!