Festiva in the Park: day 9

SATURDAY JUNE 9th, 2012

What a great day! We filled up the car and met up with Charlie for the drive up to the Grand Canyon. Charlie's Festiva is the one I wrote about in an earlier post. His is a 130mph+ track car that is very streetable. You can see just how fast his car is in the videos I posted.

Meeting with Charlie at the hotel.

With it being a Saturday we expected it to be a bit busy but it was made even busier with free admission! We stopped at the visitor center just to stretch our legs.

Welcome to Grand Canyon.



Parking is never an issue in a Festiva



Sharon, B, me, I and E at the first viewpoint.

Sharon, me, B, E and I at another viewpoint

B enjoying the view.

Leading the way up to Desert View.

E, I and B at the Desert View lookout

E with a great verse!

Me and Charlie at Desert View.

Charlie led us along Highway 64 and we made a few stops along the way. Our last stop was at Desert View and the Watchtower for a bite to eat. We parted company after lunch and headed east. Charlie left ahead of us but 5 minutes later Charlie flagged us down at one of the roadside vendors. Right away I noticed a blue Festiva which turned out to belong to the owner of the stand. Elmer was really happy that we stopped by. He told us he just recently started driving his Festiva and loves it... why wouldn't he? Charlie left some contact info in case he needed parts, we also told him about fordfestiva.com so hopefully there will be a new member soon!

Red, white and blue! The first "Southwestiva"

Charlie dubbed our little mini-meet "Southwestiva"... lets hope it's the first of many to come! Sharon and I want to say thank you to Charlie for spending the day with us. We really enjoyed our time with him as he shared his love of driving and Festivas, and his knowledge of the area.

We parted company again, Charlie heading south and us north. Our target for this leg of the trip was Cedar City UT. We stopped for gas in Page AZ and headed back west across the Glen Canyon dam.

On Highway 89 south of Page AZ

Heading west across the Utah desert.

The drive from Page was fairly uneventful until we reached SR 14 in Utah. There was a sign just after the turnoff that said road closed 7am-7pm. It was about 7:30pm by the time we were there so we forged ahead. This road climbed up to 2980m (9974ft), almost as high as Tioga Pass! It started to get dark on the downward stretch and this is where it got interesting. This is prime deer grazing area and we were being fairly cautious, not just because of the deer but also because it was an unfamiliar road. A car caught up to us and passed then within 30 seconds we saw him swerve and then hit a deer!! We stopped to make sure he and his passenger were OK. They were a little shaken up as can be expected and the front right bumper was pushed into the tire. Fortunately the air bags didn't blow. We were even more cautious from here on down to Cedar City as we also discovered the reason for the daytime road closure... major construction.

After a bit of a stressful drive dodging pylons in the dark we finally made it to the hotel. Day 10 is to be a light driving day as we plan to spend the day in Zion National Park.

CLICK HERE FOR DAY 10