Day 23: Henderson NV - Flagstaff AZ

Today's entry is brought to you by the word "wind".  W-I-N-D.  Wind.  It was windy.  Just like yesterday, only more so.  This is probably the reason why Las Vegas was actually visible, because the wind had blown the usual cloud of brown ozard somewhere else.  A truck driver I chatted to just now says it was the same right across Texas too.  But anyway...

The hotel in Henderson operates an "Express Checkout Service", which is to say they bung the receipt under the door and you can leave the keys in the room and bugger off.  They didn't mention that along with the receipt there would be a half-eaten choc-chip cookie, but perhaps that's a Special Service they only offer to Gold Rewards members.  Anyway, what could be lurking behind this door?

Who lives in a house like theeees?

I like to believe it's a demon of some kind but, more prosaically, think it more likely to be the air-con.

So the morning was not as stinking hot as yesterday, though just as windy, and I was blown to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area where, chiz curses, there was someone on the gate to take my money, unlike 2014.  Karma, or something.  And I didn't even want to go there but the alternative was to go back towards Las Vegas, which was full of traffic and wind.  Off the Lake Mead NRA, y'see, lies the Valley of Fire State Park, past whose entrance I had foolishly driven on the way to the Hover Hoover Dam three years ago without even noticing its presence.  As the name suggests, it is full of red rocks, and wind.

Also this feathered ruffian who, mercifully, was too intent on scoffing an apple core to try robbing my bag like his cousins in Canyonlands did that time.

Nom nom nom!

Also the French couple, driving this:

They almost got into the ASBO by accident.  At least I think it was an accident.  Better timing might have seen me heading off into the distance with a new and elegant blonde companion on whom to practice my French, while her swarthy companion remained behind to rail at the Perfidy of Albion.  That's twice on this trip that poor timing has seen the ASBO's passenger seat not graced by an elegant blonde.  Bah!

I could have gotten to Flagstaff much quicker had I retraced my path and gone down US-93 past the Hover Hoover Dam, but where's the fun in that?  Instead I took off north, briefly into Utah, then across the Arizona Strip.  It's all very sagebrush and red rocks, so there wasn't anything much worth stopping for until the road makes a sudden break skywards near Jacob Lake.  There's a bit of higher ground here which gets even higher to the north and can't be bypassed to the south because of an inconvenient hole in the ground, viz. the Grand Canyon.  The extra altitude makes for cooler temperatures, but has no effect on the wind.

Somewhere behind those trees is a The Grand Canyon

Cloud shadow on the Vermilion Cliffs

Downhill all the way to Navajo Bridge and across the Mighty Colorado, then steadily uphill again almost all the way to Flagstaff, where it is windy.  Nothing very exciting on this stretch either, except the bridge over the Little Colorado at Cameron.

Two bridges, actually; the pillars of the new one can be seen  under the deck of the old one

Arrived in Flagstaff at nightfall.  It is almost eight pm.  Actually, it isn't, but the ASBO's clock gets its time from Sarah the SatNav's GPS wossname.  Sarah thinks it is an hour later than it actually is, because no-one has told her that Arizona doesn't do Summer Time.  But it does do wind.

Wind.  I hope it is leaving the Tandem Things well alone.