Grand American Tour Day 12: Zion National Park

One way that I have formulated to save money and time is to get lunch ready in the morning so we don’t have to disrupt the route to eat, and that usually means getting per-made deli sandwiches from the grocery store. That said, I ate a lot of sandwiches during this trip.




Ostrich farm on the way from Hurricane to Zion.





Hurricane is not far from Zion National Park. The drive to the park was scenic, but it only offered a hint of what we will be seeing. Upon entering Zion, I understand what it means by “Spectacular”. It’s really like heaven, a world of perfection within the reality, too good to be true. Every corner is a framed picture. While at Grand Canyon, I felt like ant standing on the edge of a tile crack, Zion makes me feel like I am an ant at the bottom of a crack…in a cookie.

It was a shame that we only had half a day to enjoy the canyon. There’s a wide range of trails and we picked two to explore. I don’t think there can be a bad trail here, because every sight is just so pleasing to the soul.





Zion adopts the same bus system as Grand Canyon, so we didn’t have to drive. There’s also drinking water available at several trail heads. This is the first time when I would say the government is thoughtful.

As night fall, Zion couldn’t be a better place for night shots. The sky was star-packed. The milky-way is easily identified and accompanied by meteorites falling into the atmosphere. We even saw a bright one breaking into two while entering the Earth’s atmosphere. It was phenomenal.





The drive to the next town, Kanab, was not nearly as long as the last one, but it was still quite a haul especially at night. Exiting from the East entrance, the road was very twisting mountain roads with lose gravel, snaking among the canyons before it turns into fast straights and gentle turns. Again, night driving is always more stressful when you don’t know what’s around you. Lucky, it was a smooth one and the hotel was great.



Photo Dump:











MOAR PHOTOS HERE!!!

Grand American Tour Day 11: The Big-Ass Canyon

Driving towards Flagstaff, the elevation increases and the climate becomes cooler with more green. The weather is still very dry, but the landscape is filled with pine trees and rolling hills. It was like an escape from the oven hot Phoenix, from hell to paradise.



Grand Canyon South Rim is essentially a huge tourist trap. I have been here before when I was young, with a tour group from Taiwan. It was one of those tours where you spend more time on the bus than off the bus. The joke was “Sleep on the bus, pee off the bus”. This time, I was a free man. Free to go wherever I want, free to stop whenever I want, free to pee when and wherever I want.



Things have evolved since for the better. Most national parks in the area now have their own public transport where tourists just ride the buses to different spots of the park as opposed to driving causing traffic jams. Grand Canyon adopted this system which is surprisingly convenient. No long waits, air conditioned and comfortable bus with friendly drivers. Best of all, it’s free.

There’s nothing much to be said about Grand Canyon. It explains itself. Basically, it’s a big-ass crack on planet Earth. However, the canyon start to look the same no matter which angle I admire it from, and before long, I thought I am done with the place.

Nonetheless, it is the experience of being able to feel something as awesome as this in person. The sense of scale is indescribable. It changes one’s perspective about his existence on this planet. Basically, I felt like an ant standing on the edge of a tile crack.











Leaving the park, I didn’t realized that the hotel, in the town of Hurricane, was a good 5 hours away. So we drove, and drove. It was pitch black. There’s thunder storm in the far and the sky was constantly being lit with lightning flashes. That’s when we can, occasionally, get a glimpse of what’s around us at the moment. Then we came across a bridge and realized how amazing the stars are. There was no one around. We knew we were in the canyon, far from anything. So it was time for some night shots. This was the first night shot I took during this trip, so it was more like a warm up for me.

What awaits down the road was my kind of dish. Twisty mountain pass. Having never been in the area before, I had no idea where I was, what’s around me and what’s coming next. The car turned, climbed and accelerated. Then it rained and the road was wet. Going through the mountain pass trying to make up for lost time in the rain when high-beam wasn’t really much of a use, it was more than exciting. Oh, and there were deers all over the woods that I had to watch out for.

Finally, we arrived at Hurricane. We survived the night and looking forward to another day of adventure.





Moar photos HERE!!

Grand American Tour Day 10: Cosanti and Arcosanti

Scottsdale is an interesting city of architecture. Frank Lloyd Wright had an office here and a street is named after him. Scottsdale is also like an experimentation ground for unique architecture styles. One of which is by Paolo Solerii.

Paolo Soleri studied with Frank Lloyd Wright and began to experiment with the idea of sustainable neighborhood since the 50~60s. In 1970, he finally was able to begin to realize his dream with the Arcosanti project located an hour north of Scottsdale.



There is also a smaller project, the Cosanti project, which is located in Scottsdale where Paolo still lives at. It is opened to the public so my friend and I were able to visit both sites.

So I will let you guys wiki both Corsanti and Arcosanti projects for their history. I will just provide the experience and photos.

Walking into the Corsanti site, first thing I noticed is, this is not about one building. This is a network of infrastructure. There is not a prominent tall standing structure that represents it as an icon. Every building is low below the tree line, therefore it looked more like dewellings among the desert forest. It is very hard to describe the architecture. It is extremely organic. It seems that there is not a particular plan and is still growing. It seems like this is like a plant’s root, growing as needed and available. There are a lot of dome-like strictures, however, with what seems like very primitative technique of concrete using crude molding.











The site also houses foundary to produce wind bells for sale. In fact, the entire site is decorated with wind bells with price tags on them, with designs that speaks the same language as the architecture where they are produced.



Visiting the Corsanti site created a lot more questions than answers. So we headed to the Arcosanti site next.



Arcosanti is located an hour north of Scottsdale close to the I-15 highway. It is 3 miles from the freeway in the middle of the desert canyon. Arcosanti itself is like the magnified version of Corsanti. Instead of a small private residence size building, it is set to be a town community.

Paolo Soleri’s main idea is that he believes that a community designed to be self sufficient, where people don’t need to travel far, will promote sustainable living. Arcosanti is the experiment. In 1970, Paolo was granted the use of land. People flocked to Arcosanti to help with the project. Many of them came as apprentence, learning and building the site at a non-commercial rate. By non-commercial, it has no schedule, no fixed planning or penalties for late projects. Arcosanti does have a main design, but everything takes place in whatever “natural” ways it takes. So far, only a small portion of the entire design is finished, but many of Paolo’s ideas have been put to the test.









The site also holds many performance events making it a somewhat hip place to be for performers. Guests can also pay to stay there. It’s really a weird place. It’s like Cranbrook except you go there to build, participate in different workshops, volunteer to teach and make bells. It’s like a get away, a detour in life to become a monk for 3 months or something like that. It is also like Cranbrook in the sense that the entire place is an experiment and you are there to determine the outcome. I really admire Paolo’s ambitions and his followers’ faith. Faith in their own efforts to make things happen, faith that is grounded with their own sweat.

Talking about bells, that’s where Paolo gets his funding from.

Very few people dare to have a dream. Even fewer take the step to work towards it, and rarely do they find ways to make it happen. Paolo not only has built the foundation for his dream, but created a platform for many to build theirs upon.

I just hope that these folks find their dreams using this as the jumping board. It is just too easy to tag along and call it a day.









For more photos, please click HERE~!

Grand American Tour Day 09: Sedona and such

The is the beginning of the canyons portion of the tour. The drive out of Phoenix changed quickly when the elevation of the road rose suddenly. The temperature dropped and the vegetation changed. There was a lot more green, more farms and more storms. All around us we can see storm clouds with curtains of rain far away with occasional lightning. The sky was therefore cloudy, not ideal for photographs, but can create interesting compositions.





On the way to Sedona, we stopped by the Montezuma Castle, which is essentially an ancient apartment style building carved into a cliff surface. There was nothing more than a short walk to the site and admire it from below, but interesting to note that the Southern Sinagua people who built took the natural contour of the cliff into account when designing the buildings, and included the concave facade as a part of the design.



Another site was the Montezuma Well. This is a round lake fed by underground spring. The water is crystal clear and the endless supply of water creates lush vegetation at where the water runs off. It was a pleasant surprise to find a paradise-like environment as we walked from the top of the lake (desert-like) to the bottom where the water escapes ( green with lots of vegetation). It’s a wonder what water can add to the environment.







Driving to Sedona was a short and pleasant one. We climbed above 4000ft on I-17 before veering off towards Sedona. The drive was of course scenic, and the canyons were before our eyes in no time. Before we got to Sedona, we stopped by a chapel that is built into the rocks of the canyon. It’s a simple structure, using the cross as the main theme plunging into the rocks and looking out into the canyon.








Surrounding the canyon are, well, wealthy large mansions. Green lawn in the middle of the desert with 4 garages and a big poodle running around in the yard. What a life! What a contrast to the run down establishments of the local Indians.



Sedona is nothing more than a tourist trap with resorts and shops. We were looking for a place for dinner wondering what’s the local specialty…. Sports bar/grill…. Steak house….. BBQ….. Korean vegetarian???















Anyways, Arizona is quite a state. Harsh environments, but this is a proof that with money, anything is possible. Just don’t ask “why”.