July 05, 2005
Trip to the NACR, Day 5
We got up early and headed towards the Grand Canyon. It’s the first time I’ve been back there since I left Arizona over 16 years ago, and of course the place has changed. I don't mean the Canyon itself. That won’t change while any of us are around. The management of the park has changed. In the old days you could drive to any of the lookout points. Nowadays, you park and get ferried around on shuttle buses. I guess they have to do that since there are so many more people visiting but it makes me sad. It’s a loss of freedom; I get a feeling that the place is less everyones’ and now more no ones’. The Canyon itself however is still beautiful, still majestic, still ageless.
I’ve found myself missing Arizona more and more, bit perhaps it's really the Arizona of the 1980’s I miss. The air is still fresh and dry, the pines still pervade the air with their perfume, and I don’t sweat buckets. I’m find I'm really getting tired of that in Texas. Here, I almost have nosebleeds because the air is so dry and the altitude is high, but I wonder if that isn’t a better thing. I don't really consider myself a Texan, even though I’ve lived there longer than I lived in Arizona, or anywhere else for that matter. I just don’t have the Texas attitude. There’s a lot about Houston that I dislike. It’s a fairly ugly city, after all. Black mold on the buildings, billboards everywhere with garish, obnoxious advertising, often for disreputable businesses (read strip clubs), obnoxious business people, stupid TV reporting (the death count from overnight crime followed by the Hollywood gossip occupys most of the local half hour news.), Did I mention the humidity? Plus, the music radio is the worse I've ever encountered. In fact all the radio in Houston is poor. This wasdriven home to me when I tuned into the local classic rock station out of Flagstaff and I never hear a song I hated in the two hours I listened, and the ads were not obnoxious. Whereas, in Houston, The music radio has a bunch of annoying DJ’s, and the local talk radio is enough to make one hang oneself out of desperation.
Where did this entry get to? I started writing about AZ and now I’m ragging on Houston.
We passed through the east side of Flagstaff, and took US 89 towards Cameron, AZ. I saw only a little bit of Flagstaff, which I regret. But, I know I’d go down memory lane if saw more and I’d annoy K. too much. I had to spare her that. As we were driving up 89 north of Flagstaff, we stopped near Sunset crater for a rest stop. The air was so dry and cool. The pines were so nice. It was really nice to be there for a little while. I picked up a little bit of volcanic cinders and put them in a cup to bring home, to remind me of that place. Miserable sentimentality.
So we saw a lot of the Canyon. Took pictures, bought trinkets, walked along the rim for several miles.
I was not much interested in hiking when I was younger but part of me was thinking it might be fun to do a hike into the canyon, after taking the proper equipment and precautions of course. Maybe someday. I saw a poster detailing how someone, a fairly athletic young woman (her picture was on the sign) had died in the Canyon last year. She had run the Boston Marathon; was was fit. But her pack had only an apple, an energy bar and 1 quart of water in it. The Canyon is pretty, but it ain't worth dying in.
We're staying in Williams, which has expensive hotels. But we found a cute place on the west end of town called what else - The Canyon Motel. I know I saw it back in the old days but never paid it much mind. Except for the fact that the walls are thin and I we had to listen to our neighbor's TV (which was on ever since we arrived) it was okay.
There's a steam train that runs from Williams to the G. Canyon. As we arrived at out motel, I could hear it chugging along. Amazing things, steam engines. Obsolete, but oh so nostalgic, even for folks like me who weren't around to see them in their heyday. It would be fun to ride that train someday.
Thankfully, no boat or trailer problems today. Both bearing buddies are still on, the tires are still inflated, the springs are still holding and the boat has not suffered much.
Tomorrow, we press on to Bakersfield, CA or perhaps Fresno. Thursday we arrive at Huntington Lake.
