home again, home again, jiggety jig

The next morning, we had breakfast in Holbrook, Arizona, at Joe and Aggie's Cafe. Brie got an omelette, and I got a burro, which is like a burrito, only more donkey-sounding. We kept looking at these two guys in another booth dressed like cowboys and debated asking for a picture with them, but decided not to.

It was nice to see Los Angeles finally showing up on the map:


Near Joseph City, Arizona:





Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona:


Near Flagstaff, The Walnut Canyon National Monument has preserved cliff dwellings built by a 12th century tribe referred to now as the Sinagua people, probable ancestors of the Hopi. It was incredible to stand on the edge of a canyon that's 600 feet deep and imagine what would it be like to live in one of the homes built into the steep cliffs hundreds of feet above the canyon floor.


Unfortunately, the trail leading down into the canyon and past the dwellings themselves was closed, as a huge boulder had fallen on the trail and crushed the little path and the rails. Instead we walked along the beautiful rim trail above the canyon:



After Flagstaff, we stayed on Route 66 where it diverged from the interstate, and drove through miles and miles of empty desert. A couple of times, we saw a series of Burma Shave signs. The first batch said, "TRAIN APPROACHING/WHISTLE SQUEALING/PAUSE!/AVOID THAT/RUNDOWN FEELING/BURMA SHAVE." The second said, "YOU CAN BEAT" and then "A MILE A MINUTE" and then:




Outside of Peach Springs, Arizona, we pulled over and climbed on top of a roadside mound of dirt to catch a glimpse of the Grand Canyon in the distance:




It was evening by the time we reached California and the Mojave Desert:


And night by the time we reached the official end of Route 66, at the corner of Santa Monica and Ocean. Driving into Los Angeles on a Saturday night after three months on the road, mainly in the South, and a week on an old road through tiny towns, was a lot more overwhelming than I expected it to be. There are so many people! And so many cars! And lights! And ads! And skinny jeans! I kind of wanted to pull a blanket over my head. But we mustered the energy to make it to the end of Josh's 30th birthday party and I wore a dress and pretended to be from Los Angeles, and it was nice to be home.

A couple of days later, I walked to the Grove shopping area near my apartment to buy a gift for Bethany's birthday, and I stopped on the way to watch the fountain in the middle of the Grove. The streams of water are choreographed to music. There was some teeny song playing, with a chorus like, "Let's dance," and when it went into the faster-paced chorus, the fountain streams went crazy, like little water sprites rocking out to Miley Cyrus. It was really amusing and impressive. I looked around. A few people walked by, concentrating on their cell phones or their shopping, not noticing. But the fountain just kept dancing, putting on a show for no one.

I walked back home, trying out the New Orleans custom of saying, "Hey, how's it going?" to the people I passed on the sidewalk. They just looked at me blankly.