385 miles today, King­man to Kayenta, AZ. An absolutely beau­ti­ful day. Temps from 65 to about 80, clear skies with the occa­sional cloud. Rode to Grand Canyon National Park, took a bunch of pic­tures, bought the req­ui­site lapel pins. Had ‘a moment’ on the way there though: about 15 miles west of Williams a 2 ton dualie flatbed in front of me blew it’s out­side right tire at about 70mph. for­tu­nately, I was rid­ing in the left 1/3 of the lane, like we were all taught, and dodged all of the debris and the rapidly slow­ing Ford. Whew! Got my heart going for a moment there!
Not too long after that, a guy on an orange Moto Guzzi, with a Pump­kin for a hel­met passed me on I-40. I caught up with him at a gas sta­tion later. His name is Jim, and his hel­met was made by a com­pany called Head Trip. Wow.

Need­less to say, Grand Canyon was stun­ning:

The absolute hi-zoot way to see the Grand Canyon would be to book a room at one of the lodges on the rim, leave the car in Williams, and ride the train up. Looks really cool!
Left the main lodge area and headed east, stop­ping at Desert View, where they built a really cool obser­va­tion tower in the 30’s.

It was then across the Navajo nation to Kayenta, where I paid through the nose for a hotel room. Tourist sea­son, dontcha­know. There’s a bus of Asian tourists that checked in right behind me. After show­er­ing and grab­bing a bite, I decided to run up to Mon­u­ment Val­ley to catch it in the late light of the day. Glad I did:

Today’s cul­tural note: I go into a Sub­way here in kayenta, which is deep in the Navajo nation. When I open the door, there’s a very loud, very clear DING! from the door. Every head in the place swivels towards me, most swivel away, but there’s a cou­ple of folks obvi­ously won­der­ing if I’m lost. Felt very much the out­sider, I did. I sat down and had my din­ner, and watched the scene replay itself every­time some­one came in. In most cases, the entry drew no more notice. I won­der why they have such a loud and attention-getting door bell there?

Left­over mus­ing from yes­ter­day: enter­ing King­man, passed an absolutely Ginor­mous fac­tory; sign said Nucor. Turns out it’s an old steel mill, shut­down decades ago when it was North Star steel. Nucor bought it in 2007 and restarted it as a rebar plant last year. Good to see at least a few basic indus­tries still in this country.