Car trouble

Saturday, June 13 doesn't quite go as planned.

First, our tent set-up proves itself a little too comfortable. We sleep in, barely making the 11am check-out time.


We have our hearts set on hot showers before the day's long drive to Bakersfield, California. Sadly, we arrive at the shower blocks just minutes after it is shut for cleaning, and spend the next hour at the cafeteria while we wait for the showers to be available.

Hot showers are fantastic.

We finally leave the national park just after 1pm. An hour into the drive, a light flashes on our dashboard. The engine is way too hot. We're only two miles from Williams, and don't know what to do.

We decide to keep going, and make it to a gas station/mechanics called Malone's, just outside Williams. A man named Randy tells us that our radiator needs to be replaced, and we may have also ruined our engine by driving with a messed up radiator.

Randy orders the requisite part from the nearby city of Flagstaff. It will take three hours for our car to be fixed, so he has his colleague drop us off at the Williams town centre.


Williams is a tiny town whose economy seems to be largely driven by Grand Canyon tourism. We burn some time at a restaurant, and visit the visitor centre, where we mess around with some puzzles and Jim quizzes me on U.S. geography.

The mechanics finally call at 5pm, saying our car is ready to go. We're lucky to not have caused any engine damage, they tell us gruffly, and I feel just a little silly for my lack of automotive knowledge.

Despite my worries about late night driving, Jim cowboys up and decides to drive straight to Bakersfield. We arrive at our motel at 2am, exhausted, but a little too pepped up on caffeine.

Camping in the Grand Canyon National Park

At 10.30am on Wednesday, we leave the Las Vegas strip.

Following directions from Google Maps on our iPhone, we head East on the I-515 toward the Arizona border.

The first hour and a half of our drive is pleasant and uneventful. The road takes us out of the city and into the flat, lonely desert. We contemplate stopping for morning tea, but decide against the few small, run down diners that we encounter.

We reach the Hoover Dam at about noon. The Hoover Dam is a hydroelectric generating station on the Nevada-Arizona boarder that was constructed in the 1930s. Located on the Colorado River, the dam creates a 35-cubic-kilometre reservoir known as Lake Mead, which provides water to communities in Southern California and Nevada.

After having spent so many months inland, the sight of Lake Mead’s sparkling waters is breathtaking.


Thanks to security checkpoints and photo-happy tourists, there is somewhat of a traffic build-up as we cross the Hoover Dam. Fortunately, we can access the Internet via 3G so Jim is able to meet his 1pm appointment while we wait.

Traffic subsides and the road opens up once we cross the state border. We make an afternoon food stop at Kingman, and take the I-40 from there to Williams, where we spend the night.

We travel against a gradually transforming backdrop that shifts from a yellow, shrubby desert to a lush shade of green. Trees line our hour-long drive to the Grand Canyon National Park the next morning.

Arriving at noon, we set up camp in the Mather Campgrounds immediately. The campgrounds are well laid out, with each campsite providing a picnic table, firepit, carspace, and ample space for a tent.


I have never really enjoyed camping, thanks to my few experiences with too many insects, too much walking, cold (or no) showers and the foulest of foul drop toilets.

Camping in the Grand Canyon National Park is a different story altogether.

Within 100 metres of our campsite there is a ‘comfort station’ (toilet block) with clean, modern facilities. Further away, there is a shower block with laundry facilities, coin-operated hot showers complete with hairdryers. A nearby general store sells all sorts of groceries, camping equipment and firewood, while a reasonably priced cafeteria makes cooking largely unnecessary.

Our two-night stay is superbly enjoyable. We dine once with canyon views at the upmarket El Torvar, and stroll briefly along the south rim on the Bright Angel Trail. Otherwise, most of our time is spent reading, playing cards and animal-spotting at the campgrounds, perusing the store and eating at the café.

There seems to be a great fuss made about the Grand Canyon, which is, according to Theodore Roosevelt, ‘the one great sight which every American should see’.

Really, it’s a giant hole in the ground. Cool, aesthetically pleasing, yes -- but hardly a spiritual experience.