The reason I had decided to go to Flagstaff was its proximity to the Grand Canyon, and boy am I glad I chose to go! The town itself is relatively small, situated as it is along the old Route 66, which means lots of motels, Harleys and diners. It also has a University campus there so is a bustling place at night with countless bars all playing live music of various styles. I arrived late afternoon and, having picked up an ah-mazing falafel pitta got chatting to a group of people from Albuquerque who were trying to get a room in the hostel but failing as it was full. Well this was bad news for them but excellent news for me as I ended up going to a bar down the road for some drinks with them. I was gobsmacked to see cowboys doing the two step. This is a sight I did NOT think I would see, I mean guys in England don't really dance apart from shuffling around in a club after one too many brews, but here it was the real deal, twirling the girls around and throwing them up in the air. To say I was impressed in an understatement. A random older guy asked if I wanted to give it a go - now I'm not going to say no to the offer of a dance so had an extremely enjoyable time dancing around in a random bar. Plus since American's are ridiculously generous I didn't pay for a drink all night, oh and they had Strongbow. Heaven! Also kudos to the musician who was the best one man band I've ever seen! Just brilliant.

Flagstaff as a town has a really cool, relaxed vibe, probably due to the large student population, and I spent a few hours wandering around before my planned excursion up to the Lowell Observatory that evening. Now as I've said before Americans will talk to you randomly in the street totally unabashedly, and this happened to me yet again as I was accosted by a guy called Rafael who started talking to me whilst I was walking to find some food. It ended well though as he showed me a little diner hidden away in a little shopping centre that I would never have found on my own. I had the best pulled pork sandwich ever, so kudos to that man for that gem! Luckily I managed to escape his attention and continued wandering around the frontier style town - I half expected cowboys and sheriffs to come clattering down the street on horseback.

It was some kind of science festival month whilst I was there so I walked up to the Lowell Observatory in the evening, marching up the hill like a woman possessed to get there in time! The Lowell Observatory is where Pluto was discovered (the non-planet) and it's an impressive spot situated on top of a nice big hill with the massive white telescope building peeping out from between a stand of trees. The reasoning behind my visit was to attend a talk from a meteorite hunter - a man called Geoff who has a tv show on the science channel about it. It was actually really interesting and he was a funny and engaging character (probably because he is English!). Did you know that meteorites often contain gemstones - mainly a peridot type of stone but also bits of diamond and stuff. Cool huh! I also found out the difference between a meteor and a meteorite - basically one is still in the sky and one is on the ground. I got a signed postcard afterwards and he was really surprised and pleased to have a fellow Brit there, I guess you don't meet many at that kind of event, especially in such a random spot as Flagstaff! After looking through the giant telescope at some kind of globular nebula (it was very fuzzy and not at all impressive…although it was billions of light years old so I'll forgive it this once) I had to make potentially the most dangerous/scary walk yet of my trip. That is walking back down the hill to the hostel. Now I say dangerous and scary because Flagstaff is the world's first dark sky city which basically means they have minimal streetlights so that the observatory has perfect conditions to view the night sky. Unfortunately for pedestrians needing to walk at night this means you are doing it in pitch black with cars unable to see you, as well as hearing the creepy sounds of a forest at night - owls hooting, animals rustling and trees creaking. Spooky! I did hit on the idea of using my phone torch as a light source and to show cars that I was there so managed to make it back in one piece.

My original idea for my free day in Flagstaff (by which I mean a day in which I had no fixed plans) was to hire a bike and cycle some of the urban trails that abound in the town's vicinity. The weather, however, had other plans and no sooner had I started off towards the bike rental place than it started raining. Figuring there would be some kind of shelter further down the road off I went and came across a beacon in the gloom - Barnes and Noble, someone was definitely looking out for me to send me right into the arms of the best kind of shop there is, a bookshop. For the next couple of hours (yes it really was that long) I wandered the shelves, making a list of books I want to find when I get home and generally loitering and making the staff suspicious. Not so suspicious, however, that I didn't manage to read half of a book I had been desperate to read from the moment I found out it had been published. They are definitely a lot less narky about reading the stock than WH Smiths!

When I finally dragged my eyes away from the book to look outside the rain had stopped and I figured I may as well do something outside, as per my original idea. I gave up on going back to rent a bike so instead set off on foot to find a nearby route entitled 'tunnel springs'; sounds exciting eh! My only problem was that the trails map that I had didn't really have any distances marked out on it and so I just had to trudge along hoping I'd find the right turn off. I eventually did after about a mile and a half of walking alongside route 66, which let me tell you isn't as fun as driving it, although I did see a gopher which was nice. Once I'd found the turn off trying to find the actual entrance to the urban trail was like hunting for some mythical gate in a Terry Brooks novel, but I finally found a tiny sign and set off on my merry way. The trail led me underneath the railway tracks - so many freight trains pass through Flagstaff that it's a constant background noise, I can even hear them in bed at the hostel, and counted one with 113 carriages, wow - and wound up the hillside through a Ponderosa pine forest. Now I'm just going to put it out there but Ponderosa pines are creepy. They have these really black crusty trunks and branches that look like they are half dead and the long green pine needles are like knitting needles waiting to poke you when you're not looking. Despite that the walk was very pleasant, lots of birds were about and although I don't believe any of you are budding ornithologists I can tell you that I saw a few Steller's jays which dashed around creating bright blue flashes amongst the trees. The weather had picked up nicely from the earlier rain and the sun created intriguing dappled shadows on the forest floor so it was a very picturesque wander for me. Don't worry though I'm not turning into a tree hugger just yet.

Since I'd started my book at Barnes and Noble it would have been rude to leave it half finished so when the walk brought me back round past it (not intentionally honest…) I snuck back in to finish it. What a day, a big walk and reading an entire book. I impressed myself if I'm honest! It was back to the hostel after buying a jacket potato at a nearby supermarket - the first cooking I've done in the US, shocker - ready for a day at the Grand Canyon before leaving town for yet another state - New Mexico.

Becca