US 5 - Tusayan to Grand Canyon Caverns

Tue. March 6th, 2007: Tusayan, Oak Creek Canyon, Sedona, Montezuma's Castle, Caverns.
Departing from Tusayan SOUTH Str. 180 and then 80 to FLAGSTAFF (scenic road viewing the San Francisco Mountains with Humphrey's Peak - >4000m high). The street is approx 2500m high, so snow is around, but not on the street, and we pass local X-country-skiing resourts like SNOWBALL. From Flagstaff on Str. 89A we pass the OAK CREEK CANYON, stopping at a view point there, a very beautiful road with hitchbacks down to SEDONA, a western style nice little town, populated by artists, surrounded by beautiful red rocks, where we lunched at the Hitching Post restaurant. Then we continued through the RED ROCK STATE PARK (79) to Interstate HW 17 to visit MONTEZUMA's WELL and MONTEZUMA's CASTLE (old indian ruins from the 12/13. century!, but never used by Montezuma). Very nice National Monuments showing the history of the indian population. Then we returned - this time via HW 17 - to FLAGSTAFF and then on HW 40 passing SELIGMAN to historical Route 66 to Grand Canyon Caverns, which were already closed, so we decided to stop at the Gr.Canyon Inn (in the mid of 'nowhere').