Departure.
For those of us who live in the far western part of Liguria, it's convenient to use Nice airport. For the United States, moreover, there are two direct flights a day, but we didn't use them given our final destination: Phoenix, Arizona. The search for the best route, together with the best price (not to wrong what remains of our Genoese-ness, but I think it's very important for non-Genoese too), led us to choose American Airlines with the Nice-London, London-Dallas and Dallas-Phoenix legs. After clicking to buy the ticket, I notice that on Thursdays there is a direct London-Phoenix flight, but by then it was too late.
Starting to plan the trip, we took a broad look at the trips reported on Viaggiscoop and, very humbly, we also wrote to a couple of people who had already done it recently, who immediately made themselves available by email and gave us some very valid pointers, which we partly made good use of. I knew that an old friend lived in Phoenix, Ben, whom I hadn't seen since the early seventies, that is, since we were both in the military and he was a Lieutenant Junior Grade at the Headquarters of the US 6th Fleet. I knew that, once his service was over, he had returned to Chicago to finish his law studies and then had moved to Phoenix where he practiced law. Well, I managed to find him via the internet and we got in touch. I asked him to send me some maps of the places so we could better orient ourselves about the trip.
Moreover, last October, the latest edition of the Lonely Planet guide "South West USA" had just come out. A guide that proved extremely useful, indeed almost indispensable, for the immense store of valid information it contains, even if we then didn't share its judgment on some restaurants. We chose the places to stay based on the places we had set out to visit. The site was very useful. Once the places were chosen, with a counterclockwise departure from Phoenix, we began booking the hotels online, inside the "circle". A small tactical error. After the experience gained, we realized that we should have phoned and haggled over the price, as I saw done, with excellent results, by my friend. Both on the occasion of renting the car and for the hotel during the second stay in Phoenix. In these two circumstances my Genoese-ness was ashamed of itself.
The only place where I believe you can't haggle is the "El Tovar Hotel" at Grand Canyon Village since you have to reserve at least a year in advance; it's famous because, inaugurated in 1905, it has had illustrious guests, including Albert Einstein and President Teddy Roosevelt. Once the plane was booked and the hotels booked, the excursions remained to be booked, about which, to tell the truth, we weren't yet well oriented. My friend Ben, duly consulted, told us that in April there wouldn't be any problems booking at the time. Which then fortunately turned out to be true. On arrival in Phoenix he was waiting for us at the airport. After greeting each other, we started telling each other about the last thirty-seven years and it seemed as if we had seen each other the day before...
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