But for Dave waking me up around 5:20 am, I would have to be satisfied by watching canyons in my dream or probably on TV! We started around 5:35 am and I was the first one to check-in. It was good to see an operational coffee/snacks shop (a satellite center of Shipping Shop). NWA agents were requesting people to stay back (over-weight problem) - I was tempted to accept the offer but since I had so many things to do in my short vacation, I declined it. Eventualy, two people didn’t show up and I wasn’t at loss! I met Dr. Pushpa Murthy and Sonali, spent quite some time talking to them, both in Houghton and in Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport, on varied topics; The journey started off on-time and while on board NW2790, I met someone who specializes in IT part of Avionics. Our flight attendant turned out to be very social and given a chance, I would love to be on a flight with her again. Flight reached MSP on time too. Not having taken time difference into account, I did get a mild shock when I thought it was just two minutes to the second part of the journey. My next flight started off on time too and my co-traveller was a travel agent from Bloomington, MN. She did give me useful, insider’s, information about ‘flight cancellations’. I reached Phoenix a few minutes ahead of schedule, around 10.50 am MT. My luggage too reached Phoenix by the same flight and journey to the wild (or the Wild Journey) started off in a nice car, Nissan Sentra Compact, about 45 minutes later. Owing to a hard-learnt (and strictly being followed) No Panic Policy, I did not miss exits - though there were too few to miss anyway.

Journey from Sedona to Flagstaff, on AZ89-A, was another segment of my drive that’s beyond my capacity to explain. Curly, snakish roads, climbing up atleast couple thousand feet was great but I just wish I was in a better state of mind to enjoy the drive. Beyond Flagstaff, continuing my journey on I-40 West and AZ-64/AZ-180, I could not help but wonder as to where exactly was the canyon - all that I got to see is plain land for miles and one small hillock hinting that I was on the right road. Probably due to headache or over-anxiousness to see the canyon, I had forgotten the fact that Flagstaff itself was at 6000+ feet above the sea level and more importantly, I was driving on an almost flat but wide mesa. I reached Grand Canyon by about 6 pm or so and just a glimpse of the canyon from the road gave me, as it probably does to most, a sense of accomplishment. I had some difficulty, first finding a place to park my car and then in searching for my room. All that I had in me was enough to take some more pictures of the sunset, talk to few people, get something to eat (Banana and Yogurt), and I forced myself to sleep, just to avoid aggregating my already cracking headache.