Field Notes: The Grand Canyon

Hey, look: I’m almost as tall as the Grand Canyon!

: )

Words sorta fail me now, one week later, as I contemplate my visit to a place that I, for some reason, keep wanting to refer to by its Spanish name, el Cañón del Colorado ... which, all week, I kept thinking of as “el Cañón Grande” — references that would piss off some people, probably the same ones who get uptight over such atrocities as singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in Español. (Myself, I usually don’t sing the national anthem, but I certainly couldn’t care less what language others use when they sing it. What upsets me are those people who don’t stand at attention when it is played or sung, whom I have witnessed many times at various sporting events — and it’s not just the kiddies doing this, either — or those idiots who are just plain disrespectful, such as that NBA player who used to turn his back to the American flag when the national anthem was performed. Hey, you don’t have to honor this country’s flag or anthem or anything, but you don’t have to be a complete dumb-ass, either!)

OK, now, where was I?

: )

I have wanted to see the Grand Canyon for, like, forever. I had a chance to do so in 1989 when I visited some pals in Phoenix; however, that was a quickie three-day-weekend trip, and no one seemed to want to spend one of those days traveling to and from the Grand Canyon.

I also had the chance to visit this natural wonder seven or eight years ago when my pals and I ventured to Las Vegas and spent part of a day at Hoover Dam. Had I known then just how close we were to the Grand Canyon, I would have insisted that we drive on over ... or, at the very least, I would have gotten in a good pout/sulk about it if we didn’t work that into our travel plans.

Last week, however, provided me with the perfect opportunity to see the Grand Canyon, and I seized it.

Monday, May 8, 2006

I leave Tucson sometime between 7 and 8 a.m. (Not sure what it is about the desert/mountain air, but for some reason, this entire week, I am able to go to bed relatively early each night and arise rarin’ to go each morning!) By early afternoon, I arrive at Flagstaff, figuring I have another two-plus hours or more before reaching the North Rim.

Naturally, I failed to figure in the half hour or so that I spend LOST in Flagstaff! OK, not so much “lost” as “off course,” but, ultimately, it’s all good; after all, I’m going to the freaking Grand Canyon!

: )

I see a sign, just after the turn-off to the South Rim, saying the highway to the North Rim is not yet open for the season. My pre-trip planning had advised that another road to the North Rim should not be attempted unless you had a four-wheel drive vehicle, and even then, you could expect to receive tire damage — so I quickly decide that the South Rim sounds pretty good to me.

Twenty minutes or so later, I enter the Grand Canyon National Park, pay my $25 fee and drive to Desert View. I park, visit the restroom and then walk toward a vacant bench overlooking the Grand Canyon.

For the second time on this particular afternoon, my eyes fill with tears. Just like now, as I type these words that I wish could somehow describe how it feels to look into the enormity, the sheer magnitude, of this place. This beautiful place.

My beautiful friend Roger understands. He tells me, a couple of days later — during a chat in which he refers to me as “cactus-butt” (let us all pray that THAT one doesn’t, uhm, stick!) — that he has been to the Grand Canyon a couple of times, and both times he cried (“like a baby” were his exact words).

My beautiful girlfriend understands, also. She, too, has been to the Grand Canyon twice, and she simply nods in agreement when I stammer away, trying to convey just what it is that seeing this place has meant to me.

Even the photos cannot do it justice ... and far better photographers than I am have tried. And some of them have come away with pictures that, surely, are quite vibrant and lovely, but unless you could somehow shoot photographs and print them, life-size and in the exact colors of the canyon — and you would probably need to shoot one every few minutes, almost every day during every season of every year, because the varying weather conditions and lighting would surely give you different perspectives — well, to me, that would be the only way to “capture the canyon,” so to speak.

Still: I try. (Of course I do!)

: )

In no particular order, other than mostly chronological as I make my way along Desert View Drive.

It is right about here that I ask some fellow tourists to snap the traditional “Me Standing in Front of the Grand Canyon” picture. Which I was NOT going to do, thinking, why do I need a picture of me standing in front of the Grand Canyon, anyway? After this, naturally, I decide I also need to take pictures, via the camera on my phone, of me standing in front of the Grand Canyon!

For whatever reason, to do this, I place my Kodak 6490 on one of the flat rocks at the lookout point (instead of looping the camera strap around my neck LIKE I ALWAYS DO and LIKE I ALWAYS INSIST THAT OTHERS DO, also) and snap away with the phone. After this, I go to pick up my Kodak and accidentally DROP IT onto the ground ... which is not so much “the ground” as it is “a rocky incline leading DIRECTLY to the bottom of the Grand Canyon”!

(Gulp!)

The camera bounces and slides a couple of feet before coming to rest between these boulders — henceforth known as Dumb-Ass Rocks. (The “Dumb-Ass” part is dedicated to me; matter of fact, I cannot tell you the exact names of ANY of the previous formations in the Grand Canyon, but if I ever return, I most definitely WILL be able to point out these rocks.)

The Kodak comes to rest about three feet from the drop-off into the canyon. From whence there is absolutely no way I would have been able to retrieve the camera, let alone expect it to be in any kind of working order. (Amazingly, the only damage appears to be to the lens cap.)

Later, whilst driving through Flagstaff, I decide that perhaps I am not a total dumb-ass after all. Having no real clue how, exactly, to get from the road I am on back to Highway 89, I decide to trust my instincts and go straight — and end up right in the middle of the clusterfuck in which I had found myself earlier in the day during my little, uhm, detour.

Fortunately, though, after having been lost/off course there once before, I suddenly remember exactly how to get to 89! I smile to myself and, later, think of designing a bumper-sticker that says, “Not all who wander are lost ... at least not this time through!”

: )