It felt like we slept in, despite waking up at the still-respectable time of 7.30am after a not-so-great night’s sleep. The trains shuttling through Williams are incredibly loud–beyond the chugging of the wheels, they all seem to blare their horns as they whizz past. Unless you are a deep sleeper it’s not the best for a sound night’s rest!
Walnut Canyon National Monument
Our first stop of the day was Walnut Canyon National Monument, located about 16 kms (10 miles) southeast of downtown Flagstaff, where we hiked down the canyon to see how the Sinagua people built their homes from the years 1100 to 1250. Here you can walk down 273 stairs and peak into the granaries and intact dwellings on the cliff face.
There are about 25 cliff dwellings built into the rocks, where the Sinagua people lived among each other to cook and sleep. Sinagua translates as “without water” from Spanish, which is a nod to their ability to live in such a dry region. We could see some of the rocks were charred in place to show where fire had been lit to cook and keep people warm within the rocks. Speaking of the dry climate, it’s absolutely critical to moisturize and hydrate–and repeat! The climate has made our skin dry and flaky, to the extent that it’s scaly, itchy, and caused a deep cut on Lisette’s thumb that’s as pleasant as getting several paper cuts at a time. While Lisette had bought raw shea butter on a recent trip to Guinea in West Africa, clearly needing to apply after every hand wash, shower, or just because, is required!
It’s a fairly easy walk down and up, because there are handrails along the cliffs, and since it was very dry the rocks were sturdy and not slippery. Overall, it’s not a long hike–we probably were there only for about an hour or an hour and a half. Besides seeing the cliff dwellings, it was very interesting to see placards along the way noting the different plants and shrubs that the tribes used for medicinal, nutritional, and decorative purposes. Lisette has always wondered how people years ago were able to work out that a plant was not poisonous and actually provided health benefits–was someone chosen to test it out initially, and if they didn’t die or suffer terribly, would the rest of the community then figure out that it was okay? It’s incredible to think about how our ancestors had to learn so much from trial and error, to pave the path for us to live the lives we have today.
On the way out we spotted a cool expedition truck parked next to us in the car park. Michael has been interested in something similar for a while now and we debated whether this would be one we'd choose.
Checking Out Flagstaff
After having lunch in our RV after our little hike at Walnut Canyon, we drove toward downtown Flagstaff, where we saw quite a few hipster-looking restaurants and cafes, including a drive-through coffee place, which we wanted to stop at had it not been a tough squeeze for us. There was also a drive through hot dog place where you drive in the center of the building.
We figured since it was such a nice day, that we would finally use our e-bikes and ride around downtown toward Buffalo Park, a 215-acre park which boasted stunning views and where we could ride with Sheila. It took some coaxing to get Sheila finally in her dog trailer attached to Michael’s bike (she’s still not used to it, although we did take her a few times in San Francisco–she likes her freedom!), but we unzipped the roof for her so she could get a good view of everything as we rode past.
However, as soon as we arrived at Buffalo Park and hit the gravel road there, Sheila wanted to jump out of her trailer, so we’ll need a bit more practice! Unfortunately we hadn’t factored her wandering around outside of being on the bike, so we ended up heading back to our RV, which was okay as it was getting late in the afternoon and time for her dinner.
Since it was a Friday night and we’d planned to spend the ensuing nights camping in the Grand Canyon, dinner was a treat–we had an early dinner at Pizzicletta, a popular restaurant specializing in traditional Napolitan pizza. We enjoyed our thin crust pizza–Lisette also got her vegan fix, with her pizza topped with pesto and cashew ricotta! We skipped the homemade gelato as it was starting to get very cold and Michael didn’t have enough layers on (fortunately we also arrived early, as we didn’t have to wait to get seated but folks arriving when we left faced an hour and a half wait).
The First International Dark Sky City
Flagstaff is known as being the first international dark sky city, because of its commitment to preserving the dark night skies while balancing public safety and economic concerns. The city adopts evolving standards to minimize artificial light, air pollution, illuminated signage, and development impacts near scientific instruments and throughout the area.
We happened to be in Flagstaff when 5 of the planets were aligned and Jupiter, Mars and Venus were viewable with the naked eye, so it was perfect timing for us to have tickets to Lowell Observatory, where we could learn more about astronomy. The observatory has a large observing plaza that includes a luminescent walkway, solstice and equinox markers, and 6 telescopes to observe the universe.
Some of the highlights for us were going up into the Observatory Deck and lining up in the cold outside to see a cluster of stars and Jupiter on telescopes. Okay, admittedly Jupiter was less impressive than we were expecting–it was bright with a blue halo around it, but not the fiery red with impressions on it that we were kind of hoping for. We also reserved tickets to see the stars on the top floor at the Dark Sky Planetarium, via a laser presentation talking through a lot of the main constellations in the night sky and the Greek mythology behind them. It was a very chilly evening, so it was also nice to have heated seats while looking up at the night sky!
After a couple of hours at Lowell Observatory, we parked in a residential street for the night, hoping it would be much quieter than our previous night at Williams, only to realize that the noisy trains run just as loudly in both Williams and Flagstaff. So much for a good nights’ sleep!
Route Map
[…] Earlier that day, we’d met a family from London who were traveling around for about a year around the US, also spending a lot of time checking out many of the country’s national parks. The parents were homeschooling their two girls, and had previously also had a caravan to spend 18 months exploring Australia. This time, they had an epic expedition vehicle, which they’d customized and shipped from the UK (coincidentally it was the same one we spotted at Walnut Canyon - see the pic here). […]