For my trip I rented a Mazda 5:
I got the car for 31 days, unlimited miles and it ONLY cost $580 after taxes! I put 9,000 miles on this thing, drove it in intense heat, rain, hail, high winds, and snow temperatures. It was big enough that I could sleep in it and I did a number of times.
My drive to Flagstaff was a nice drive through desert landscapes. It was very pretty. Eventually I got into some low mountains along the way. I saw a number of things I would have loved to have taken photos of but if I had tried to do that it could have added 2 hours to my drive.
While heading out to Flagstaff I started day-dreaming. I was a little nervous as I had never couch-surfed before and I didn't know what I would be walking in to. Also, I started to realize the magnitude of what I was taking on in this trip and was a little nervous about it. I decided to stop thinking in such grand scales and instead just focus on a drive to one town at a time and that made things much easier. So... while I was day dreaming I neglected to look at the gas gauge and then all the sudden I realized the gas light was on and I was on a desert road with nothing around for miles. I began to get VERY concerned. Was this how my trip would start? Day 1, stranded in a desert with nothing and nobody around?
Here is a video of me getting nervous about my situation. I am sorta clowning around but I was really quite nervous about this. Also, the mileage on the car may say things like 364 miles or 388 miles... add on 20 miles to whatever you see because I didn't reset the mileage til I had been out driving for awhile.
Here is another video of me being an idiot on my first day out on the road:
So these are two photos I took inside my hosts home. Living in Long Beach, CA. I am not used to seeing a stove like this, nor seeing things like snow shovels hanging on the wall in case it snows. I forget it snows in residential areas in other parts of the country... but that's the result of growing up in southern California I guess (and being an idiot).
I had a great time with my host in Arizona. He cooked me dinner, which was awesome and very delicious. We then were going to go see the latest X-Men movie, but it was sold out (it had just opened... and I still haven't seen it). We met up with some of his friends and hung-out at one of their houses, played some card games and just hung-out. It was a good time. Everyone was really cool and very nice.
I got my own bedroom at this house. A roommate had just moved out so I had a bed and everything! Also, the room had those glow-in-the-dark stars on the walls, so it was quite a surprise when I turned out the lights. I had forgot such things existed, I used to have some myself when I was in high school.
The next day I woke up and headed out to see the Grand Canyon. Here are some pictures below, but I will post about that experience later.
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