6/5 - I get my kicks on Route 66 ...

I'm sitting here in the Dambar Steakhouse in Kingsman Arizona - we've just come out for dinner, and there is actually sawdust on the floor, photos of rodeo queens on the wall, exposed beams, farming paraphenalia, and some country music playing in one of the other rooms. The kids are colouring in the "kids menu" given them, and both Maria and I have massive (2 litre?) red plastic cups of water sitting in front of us. The waitress just asked us where we are from and when we told her Australia she told us she'd heard on late night radio that we had a terrible drought and that she'd pray for us... All these signs make it clear we're in the American west.

This morning we said goodbye to Anaheim and began the road-trip portion of our adventure. Tomorrow we'll be at the Grand Canyon for a couple of days, then northwards to other parks. But today we made it west as far as Kingsman, leaving us a drive of under 3 hours tomorrow to get to the canyon.

The surprise of the day came about at the car rental firm. Online I'd booked a mid-size vehicle - a Pontiac 4-door sedan or equivalent was what the Alamo website listed. Once we'd finished the paperwork and walked out into the parking lot I had to ask one of the attendants whether I had the right vehicle bay. What we found was a Chevrolet HHR. Think a Beachboys film clip or a Gigit movie - one of those shortened hood, curved vehicles. Made me want to go out and bleach my hair and weld an old surfboard to the roof. I was a little bit dubious of its suitability for 25 days of round the country driving, but so far it has done well .. and all the luggage fits; which is important!

The drive was not particularly difficult - lots of multi-lane highways. Getting out of Anaheim was a bit stressful - several changes of highways and some signage that was less than clear got us off track once, but we were heading back in the right direction within 5 minutes. The scenery is very beautiful in a similar way to much of Australia - a stark beauty that not everyone can appreciate. In this case its sweeping deserts of dusty sand and rocks in which every metre or so low shrubs can be found - and in the distance (20 miles away or more usually) tower up various mountain ranges. I like it a lot but its clearly a very harsh environment for much of the year.

Anyway, time to go - we've paid the bill (and whether because of the tip or not) the waitress again told us that she and her friends would be praying for us and our drought problems. Ahhh, I can sleep easy knowing it'll all be good now.