As we approach Flagstaff the black clouds gather over the Rockies and bear down on us pouring great sheets of rain at the windscreen. Hildebrand worked for a year near Phoenix as a bellhop and he's keen to show me Oak Creek Canyon. We'll drive down through the canyon tomorrow. For now we have to find somewhere to wait out the wild weather. "El Pueblo Motel" is the one we chose. It's run by a Chinese couple. The only attraction it lists is in the letters - "TV", in red lights on a big sign that must once have included lots of other enticements. The front small row of rooms is quaintly Spanish, fresh painted and surrounded by a neat garden. Behind them are the rooms that you actually get. These have peeling paint and rusted guttering and are surrounded by gravel and weeds. Still and all they are clean, warm, and cosy on the inside and everything works just fine. The bed has plump pillows and is comfortable and roomy. All night the trains of the Santa Fe Railroad pass outside the room. This will be our last night near the trains. Tomorrow we turn South.
    Morning brings sunshine and also, since it's the weekend, day-trippers. I take an early walk while I wait for Hildebrand to wake up. Just down the road from our motel I turn a sharp corner and find myself facing a big white mountain. It's so pretty in the early sunlight. I hurry back to get Hildebrand up to see it. We have a long road ahead anyway before we make Wickenburg. It's time he got up.
    The road down Oak Creek Canyon from Flagstaff to Phoenix used to be the only way. Now there's a highway that's more direct, faster and less scenic. The highway wasn't there when Hildebrand drove up the canyon one icy night in the Winter of 1958-59. He'd just finished a late shift and a friend was stranded in Flagstaff. The car he had was old and unreliable and there was a good chance he'd run out of petrol on the lonely road. That is if he didn't slip over the edge, in the darkness, beforehand. By some miracle he made it up and back, but he has always wondered how. Now we are going to drive the road by daylight. The canyon is lovely. A pretty stream, shaded by oaks, runs through. We can't stop because the only parking areas are full and anyway they're expensive. The scenery is lovely but there are people everywhere and we've got used to the "less visited areas" I found on websites and marked on our maps. The descent is by a long series of switchbacks with sickeningly deep, plunging ravines over the edges of the road. I'm suitably impressed and glad I'm not doing the driving.