Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon or Bust….

For all snapshots of the Grand Canyon – click here!

As we drove closer to the Grand Canyon I had visions of the Brady Bunch heading out in their wood paneled station wagon for their Grand Canyon trip. The Brady’s got ‘locked up’ at a ghost town before they reached the rim of the canyon – so I was paying special attention to our navigation, steering us clear of ghost towns, to ensure that the same wouldn’t happen to Kathleen and me in our Jeep Cheroke. After all, the last thing I wanted was to end up in some jail in a ghost town being held hostage by some crazy man who thought I was stealing his gold…thank goodness we averted that disaster!

The only visions of the Grand Canyon that I really had was from that Brady Bunch episode…it was 3 parts of which one was named “Grand Canyon or Bust”…so I had to give it a nod. However, now I was going to be able to experience it for myself and I was rather excited to see it.

In fact – it was my one demand to Kathleen when we started talking about making the cross country trip. I said I would go if we could stop at the Grand Canyon as I had never seen it before. During my international travels, I became rather sick of people asking me if I had been to the Grand Canyon – I felt rather pathetic for having to say “No, I haven’t visited on of the largest landmarks in my own country.” It was as if I were saying, “I voted for George Bush…I think he’s great!” People looked at me as if I was crazy. I needed to remedy this situation!

We left from Flagstaff in the morning after I introduced Kathleen to a Midwestern restaurant staple that she had never heard of – Village Inn – home of great breakfasts and pies. As a kid it was a special treat if we went there…then again – I was also excited about Denny’s as a kid…so maybe that’s not saying much. After breakfast we treated our trustworthy car to an oil change. After a week of travel and close to 2,000 miles, it was the least we could do.

Finally, we were on the road to the Grand Canyon. I had a hard time imagining how this desolate land that we were driving through was just going to open up into a gigantic canyon. As we came closer to the park entrance you started to see the cracks in the earth…they became bigger and deeper. The Little Colorado River ran through this area outside of the park carving an impressive path through the landscape already. It was hard to believe that there was more to this. Finally we came to the park entrance. This is where my annual park pass really started to pay off…we sped through the $25 entrance fee by flashing our annual park pass, feeling as if we were veteran park go-ers already.

When it comes to the Grand Canyon – the first look is the best look. There’s nothing like it when you first see a spectacle like that – after about an hour in the park though – you start to notice the canyon less – and after a whole day there, you say…”canyon…what canyon?” Our brain adjusts I guess. My first look was magnificent. It was certainly grand…no doubt about that. We visited the South Rim of the Canyon. You learn just how vast it is when you read the brochure and it tells you that the average width of the canyon is 10 miles across to the other side. To simply drive to the other side, it would take about 5+ hours to get to the North Rim by existing roads.

We spent the day in the park taking in the views and hiking along the rim trail. The steep drop-offs were not good for the vertigo challenged, I was a bit amazed at how little railing there was. Normally at National sites they are so worried about people getting hurt that they go overboard with precautions. Yet here it was pretty simple to wander off the edge. In fact, we heard on the news they had pulled the body of a missing man out of the canyon earlier that day. I took precautions near the crumbling parts of the trail! I watched the hikers come up the trails and it was a bit torturous for me. Normally in a situation like this, I would be hiking the canyon, not simply viewing it from above with the other tourists – I would want to experience it. Yet, we did have a time limit here as we had to keep moving along on our route, which meant there was no time to hike down to the bottom, stay overnight and hike back up the next day. So – I considered this first viewing of the Grand Canyon not to be my last. I would come back one day and hike it properly – hopefully before my knees have given out!

The park was actually packed with people everywhere we went due to Spring Break vacations. This is when I started seeing the RV nation called Cruise America (an RV rental company). My first thought was – I wish I had stock in that company. The RV’s were everywhere! I fought the crowds and made it out to the rim to watch the sunset that evening. The wind had picked up and it was whistling through the Canyon with force. I braved the cold and tried to capture some of the colorful canyon light at dusk.

We stayed in the park that night at one of the lodges. Quiet, cool, clean…perfect. That night Kathleen and I enjoyed watching the exciting NCAA finals at the bar in the park lodge over some beer. We were entering Utah the next day, therefore this was our ‘last drink’ of sorts for a few days. I was happy to celebrate my first trip to the Grand Canyon. I now have an answer for people who ask whether I’ve seen the Grand Canyon or not…mission accomplished. Plus, I didn’t even get lost like Cindy and Bobby Brady!