Flagstaff

The next day i decided to visit Flagstaff for the main purpose of shopping. I headed to "Maswik Lodge" and waited there for the shuttle. I thought that it would be more fun to just go there without a reservation for a hotel. Upon arriving at the train station i asked the information desk if they knew a cheap place to stay nearby. They pointed me towards the "Grand Canyon Hostel", the room was 21$ with 5$ deposit for the key. It had 4 beds a radiator and a sink, i left my tripod and hit the shops.

  Flagstaff is a really old mountain town, the first permanent settlement there was built in 1876. It has lost of historical buildings and a wild west feeling to it, and on that note the stuff i wanted to buy were some cowboy boots, a hat and maybe a belt buckle. First i went to "Gene's Western Wear", everybody in the shop were very helpful and with some difficulty i was able to fit into a size 13(46.5EU) brown roper boots! The only ones in the whole store that fitted me. I bought two pairs of "Wrangler" jeans and i was on my way back to the hostel.

I was a bit surprised when i saw two guys in the room already. Tim from Austria and Preetesh from South Africa. We chatted a lot, and then me and Preetesh went in search for a place to eat. We ended up in "Fratelli's Pizza" where you can get a slice of pizza, salad and a soda for 6$, which compared to other places in the states is quite cheap. After that i hurried back to the room and got my tripod, i wanted to take a picture of an old American diner that i saw from the shuttle, and i had no idea how far away it was. It turned out to be 3 miles away, but i got there just in time for the sunset.

After i got back i found out that we had a new room mate , he was from Germany and riding a bike through the States. I spend the rest of the night going through my 3 backup cell phone batteries, got a bit of sleep and went out early with the thought of catching the sunrise, but the colors were quite dull, and i didn't like the results. I still hadn't bought a hat so i went in search of the other store that i knew about, it was called "Circle Q", it turned out to be six blocks from the train station, but no matter,  i found what i needed there. I checked out of the hostel around 11am and still had around 4.5 hours left 'till the shuttle back to the Canyon. On my way to the train station i saw some tumble weeds rolling towards me, it was straight out of an old western movie...a deserted train station and some tumble weeds ^^ .