1445hrs

By the time we got to the hostel last night I felt like a zombie. Downstairs it was a bar, the youth hostel seemed to have been added as an afterthought, which has been the case in most places but New York, come to think of it. Even in this time zone it was pretty late by then, and there were people in our room already asleep, so we had to get ready for bed in the dark. Which meant that when we woke up this morning, we were seeing the room where we'd spent the night for the first time. But it was nothing special, and we left after about ten minutes, so there's not much more to say about that.

We were planning on staying there again tonight, having spent today exploring Flagstaff, then going to the Grand Canyon early tomorrow, spending the day there, and either going straight on to LA or staying in Flagstaff another night and having one more day to explore the canyon. But even the best laid plans o' mice an' men, we are told, gang aft a-gley, and our plans weren't particularly well laid in the first place.

They first showed signs of ganging a-gley when the woman at the hostel told us that there were no beds spare for tonight - at least, not in male rooms. There was an empty female room, and if no more females booked in today she'd give it a sex change for us, but she couldn't guarantee as much. Not to worry, we thought - we'd already seen that there were hundreds of hotels and motels in the area, we could always go to one of them.

That sorted, we went to explore Flagstaff, having deposited our bags in a room set aside for that purpose at the hostel.

It seemed like a nice little town, and very hot. I'd have worn a tee shirt, but I couldn't seem to find any clean ones. They must be in my bag, I'm sure I can't have left them anywhere. Nevertheless, they managed to stay elusive, and I put on a shirt instead, which didn't go at all well with the shorts I'd donned originally, so I changed them for my jeans. These are the same jeans I wore in Detroit, New York, and probably other places too. I really must wash them at some point.

The most striking thing about Flagstaff is the background. Huge hills leap up on every side - to the north, the San Francisco Peaks, mountains rising into the clouds, which I wanted to climb but Colin didn't. In other directions, more impressive hills - a local was telling us he climbed one of them recently, which took about three hours. He didn't say whether that included the return trip, but I think it must have been just one way.

One thing there is the Lowell Space Observatory, of which we both liked the sound. It wasn't hard to find, being visible from some distance on top of one of the more modestly sized hills.

We climbed up to that, which was fun in itself, and had a look around the place. You could go on tours of the telescopes, or something, but we didn't bother with that, choosing instead to just look around the displays and interactive exhibits (which also happened to be free).

We then went back down the mountain, myself sustaining several grazes to the upper body, doing something between sliding and falling down a craggy slope. There were elements of accident involved, but I did it more or less on purpose just for the fun of it, and a good time was had by all.

There are a couple of other things around Flagstaff we'd have liked to see. There's a meteor crater (the biggest in the world, I think) which seems to have lost its meteor, and Montezuma's Castle, a castle (hence the name) carved into the side of a cliff. These are both close to Flagstaff by American standards, but in real terms the distance between them is probably about the length of Wales, and difficult to access when you haven't got a car. No problem, we thought, we just won't bother with them.

This is the way it should be, of course, and we have to be ruthless. You couldn't see all the sights in America if you were there for a thousand years (which we're not), and by far the best scheme is to have in mind more than you can possibly fit in, and plan all along to miss a lot of it out. So long as you have plenty to fill the time, it doesn't matter what you don't get around to.

The problem we were now faced with was the realisation that, in fact, we didn't have anything to fill the time. Other than the observatory, there is nothing of any interest in Flagstaff, or in walking distance of it.

Luckily, at this point I had an idea. We had already dismissed the idea of going to the Grand Canyon for the afternoon, since in order to get the bus back we'd only have had about an hour there. We had also ruled out the possibility of actually staying at the canyon, as it would be far more expensive. However, I wasn't entirely happy with this, since I would have liked to watch the sun setting over it. But the thought occurred to me that it probably wouldn't cost that much more - with the extra time we'd gain to see the canyon by not having to commute from Flagstaff, we could see it all sooner and stay in the area for one less night. Therefore it was either one night at the Grand Canyon or two in Flagstaff - even then, the latter would work out cheapest, but not by that much. It would also solve the problem of not having anywhere to stay if the hostel couldn't take us.

It was, I thought, a good plan, and thankfully Colin agreed. We had at this stage about three quarters of an hour until the coach to the canyon left. We hastened back to the hostel, picked up our bags, went back to the train station (to all intents and purposes, the coach is a train), got our tickets, and hopped aboard.

We should get there at around four thirty, which will give us hours to look around today, and tomorrow evening, according to the current plan (subject, as always, to change), we take a train to LA, where we stay with my aunt until we go back to Britain on the 26th.

Food supplies are low. I have a couple of small boxes of raisins and some crackers, and about 200ml of something artificial pretending to be orange juice. My only other food is a few cheese slices and something that used to be bread.

What happened was, I bought a bag of bread. Rolls, they were. And I kept them, like everything else, in my rucksack. It might have been an idea, I can see, to keep them on the top, but a person can only be so organised.

It is now, therefore, a bag of crumbs, and after some disastrous attempts at making sandwiches I plan from now on to simply toss a slice of cheese in the bag and grab handfuls.

Primitive, but, I hope, effective.

Same day

Tusayan

2034hrs

We arrived at the Grand Canyon National Park without incident, having stopped in a little village just outside it called Tusayan, to drop off people staying in hotels there (all right, so it wasn't without incident).

I glimpsed a cliff-face through the trees, which I suppose must have been the canyon, but it could have been anything. That's all I've seen of it so far.

First of all we had to secure somewhere to stay for the night. We went into the least expensive hotel within the park, which cost about sixty dollars a night between the two of us. It was, as might have been expected, full.

We rang some of the other hotels in the park. All full. The next thing to try was some of those in Tusayan.

Due to the nature of our phone card, you have to type in the area code even when you're in the area. Since we'd been calling within the park we hadn't needed it before, but we did now, so I went to find it out.

Unable to locate anyone else who might know, I queued to ask at reception, and had been there a while when I thought to inspect a leaflet on the desk about the hotel. Of course it gave their number, along with what I took to be the area code.

I reported back to Colin and he tried a couple of the numbers, but apparently they didn't exist. It was obvious that the area code was wrong, but we didn't have time to find it out - with nowhere to stay, we'd have to go back to Flagstaff for the night, and the coach was about to go.

I then noticed a telephone directory tucked away, and pulled it out. Its cover gave us the correct code, and there was just time to try a couple of the numbers again.

We booked a room at the Best Western Grand Canyon Squire Inn, and had been hoping to have a look around and watch the sun setting over the canyon before retiring. But they warned us that if we didn't get there soon they might give the room to someone else. We called for a cab.

Ever since we'd found out that the hotels in the park were all full, I'd been making clear what I considered our best move, namely to camp there. Not that we had tents or anything, but I figured that we could put all our clothes on and find somewhere sheltered, and we'd probably survive the night.

A terrible idea, of course, and Colin saw it as such immediately, which is why we found a hotel. At the time it struck me as a bit of an adventure, and it wasn't until the rain and the lightning started that I saw the error of my ways.

By the time we got in the taxi we were soaked. Apparently the weather here is like that every day, during this, the rainy season, but only for a few minutes. That's what the driver said, anyway.

Whenever I walk into the lobby of a posh hotel (and it's not something I do often) I feel as if the management would rather I wasn't there. When I am also dripping heavily onto their plush, red carpet (I don't remember what colour it was, but it was probably red), I expect at any moment to be dragged off by large men in suits and Dealt With.

As it was, we checked in without a problem. The hotel is so big, they even gave us a map to our room.

I could go on for hours about the room. Even to someone who's used to living in a normal house, this would be about the best place in the world ever, but when you've spent the last fortnight sleeping in youth hostels and on trains, this is basically Heaven.

The room is huge. You've got a wardrobe on the right when you come in, which in itself is about as big as the rooms we usually stay in. After that there's a little sink area, and an entire bathroom on the other side. A bathroom! I had an actual bath tonight, I'm actually clean now! It's a strange experience.

Come out of the bathroom, and there are the beds. The beds are huge. They are clearly both double beds, but I think they're supposed to be single. And they're only queen size, so they must have even bigger ones.

Then you've got a little table, and a chest of drawers, and then, opposite the bed, the telly! The telly is huge, and has twenty-eight channels. We watched a double-bill of The Simpsons (both ones that have been on in Britain, but still good), which even has adverts between the end of the programme and the credits, like anyone's going to wait around to watch the credits. It's Emmy night, so we've been watching that on and off too.

We've booked a place to stay within the park tomorrow night, so we'll be able to see the sun set then, and rise on Tuesday morning. We'll also now have two days to explore, and tomorrow, with any luck, we'll climb all the way down. I don't think Colin wants to, but I'll persuade him.

It's still raining. Camping in this would be hell.

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