We've made it! After a long drive through the night from Fort Worth, we are descending into the desert-like atmosphere north of Phoenix. We arrived at our first destination (The Petrified National Forrest) earlier than planned and it wasn't open.
We forgot to take into account the time zone changes. So we continued on for the Painted Desert. This is where the first real adventure of the trip happened. With only three "blips" of gas left in our little white spaceship we ventured off the Interstate to a long and winding two-lane road through the desert. About 40 minutes in John commented that he hoped we came to a gas station soon because we only had 2 blips left and quite a ways to go. We never found that gas station, there was literally nothing but these enormous mesas and a few passing semis.
With 46 miles to the next major city our light starts flashing for low fuel. At this point we took advantage of the downhill slopes and coasted as often as possible. Our little hybrid saved our butts and before long we were rolling into the first gas station in Tuba City on fumes. 
Our trip to the Grand Canyon was surprisingly underwhelming. Don't get me wrong; the reality of the huge expanse was breathtaking.
It's just a strange thing to drive up to this enormous canyon with hundreds of tourist piling off of the buses, peeking over strangers shoulders to get a better view. More than anything we just wanted to take a week and hike it!
