Besides eager mileage-runners, Drew and I are also road trip buddies, having criss-crossed vast portions of the United States and Europe together in a car. It seemed appropriate, then, that on this occasion of a small reunion, we jump in the Jetta and burn some fuel.

The destination was the Grand Canyon, that stupendous gorge carved into the rock over millions of years.

As we left Phoenix and began the elevation climb towards Montezuma's castle, the temperature began to drop. The day was perfect for a road trip, and the clear sky bode well for our views off the Canyon walls that day. We made great time, reaching Flagstaff in a couple hours.

We were ravenous by this point, so we sped into town in search of Mexican food. If you can't get gently baked beans, smoky carnitas, melted cheese and hand-rolled corn tortillas in Arizona, this might mark the end of the American Southwest as we know it. We were not disappointed with Casa Bonita on Milton Road. They had fresh tacos with buttery beans and fluffy rice. The food was re-energizing -- chugging tractor trailers and family-packed minivans seem more tolerable after a filling meal.

We merged back onto I-40 West that would take us past the Navajo Army Depot and up Spring Valley Road towards the Canyon. Humans are believed to have lived near the Grand Canyon for at least 4,000 years. From the Puebloan people in 200 B.C. to the Havasupai and Hualapai, Southern Paiute, Hopi and Navajo people today. The Navajo people represent the largest Native American tribe in the United States, but they are relative newcomers to the region having migrated to Northern Arizona from Canada in the 1400s.

While I don't have time or space to recount the entire history of the Canyon here, it was President Theodore Roosevelt who annointed the Grand Canyon with National Park status in 1906. He was a devout outdoorsman and his visit to the Canyon in 1903 mightily impressed him. "Leave [The Grand Canyon] as it is," he said. "You cannot improve on it, and man can only mar it. What you can do is to keep it for your children, your children's children, and for all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American should see."

He was right too. Saying that the Grand Canyon is "impressive" somehow does not do it justice. After paying the $25 fee to get into the park, Drew and I sat on the edge of the Canyon and just stared quietly. The jutting edges and deep chasm went on for miles. After a while I lost my sense of perspective. Everything past the first pillars of stone and dirt looked like flat wallpaper. The sun through the clouds cast dramatic, moving shadows on the Canyon form. Henry David Thoreau talks about the the "gentle touches of air and water" being the finest workers in stone. And the Canyon is a tribute to their art.

Drew and I had just missed a ranger tour by 10 minutes, so after sitting and watching the Canyon, we left the way we had come. Typically, we would race back to the freeway, but we decided to detour along Route 118 and stop by Drew's mother-in-law's house. The road looped us through the Arizona wilderness, with its forest fire battle scars and empty lakes.

At 9PM, the Jetta had 1/8 a tank left and it was sitting in the parking lot of Blue Wasabi, a new sushi restaurant in Phoenix full of beautiful people. Drew and I consistently end a long road trip with a celebratory feast, as an exclamation point, a toast to our safe passage and a reminder of how far we've come.