Leg Three: Vegas to the Grand Canyon

With a little sadness we left our hotel mansion, loaded up in the van, and looked ahead to the Grand Canyon. Before we left Vegas, we had a chance to meet another email friend for Lunch. I was nice to put a face with the email address, but again, far far too short a visit! We tried to get together while in Vegas, but I couldn't make the "big day" visit, so I had to settle for lunch. Sorry Jenn!

We got on the freeway and headed out. The Grand Canyon is just about due east of Vegas, maybe a touch south. If there were a road that travelled as the crow flies, it's probably a 1:45 trip from where we had lunch, a tad longer from the strip.

However...there isn't a road like that. The best ya got is US 93 to I 40, to AZ 64/ US 180. It's a big horseshoe.

First thing you see after you leave Vegas is teh Hoover Dam.


A Blurry Shot...

These big dams are pretty interesting engineering marvels. I had the full tour of the Glenn Canyon Dam when traveling around the Canyon with my grandparents in 1984. Unfortunately, as we approached the dam there was a sign telling us to tune to 1620AM for info. There was a charge for parking, a charge for getting in the dam, a charge for a tour, a charge to get out of the dam, and a charge to get your car out of parking! Ok, so the last two are fabrications, but...with seven people in the vehicle, it would have been a little pricey, so we opted to drive slow.


Statue outside the dam.

It was pretty neat to drive over the dam, but you had to watch for the swarming pedestrians! Interesting to note: There is a problem with water out there ("In the DESERT?!" You ask, incredulous.) Yes, in the desert they are having water shortage concerns. TV ads run in Vegas about only watering your lawn once a week. Billboards on the freeway tell folks to screw Vegas, it's not their water anyway (The lake, Lake Mead, is in AZ)! And you can see why there is all this concern in the photo below.


Lake Mead.

See the pretty mountains? The sparkling blue water? The white rock? The white parts of the mountainside is where the water used to be. Again, with things as big as they are out there, you can't really get a good perspective on how low the water is, but it's hundereds of feet. Time for another hippy-sounding lesson in eco-morality. The folks in the desert are in a bind. So are the folks in Atlanta GA, of whom I will speak because I'm more familiar with their circumstances.

In Atlanta, the resevoir that supplies them their fresh water is at a point where it can only provide them with 80 days of water at their "normal" rates of consumption. For the lake to fill back up to full levels would take 4 months of continuous days of rain. We all know that ain't gonna happen.

I'm not about to begin preaching that these are signs of man-made climate change and harbingers of the END!!!! But I will say that there's nothing wrong with turning off the water while you brush your teeth, or using low-flow shower heads (they have amazing pressure, so don't worry that your shower isn't going to be the pleasure you've come to expect). For watering your garden, you could place a couple clean garbage cans near your downspouts and collect rainwater (covering it to avoid mosquitos in the summer). There are a lot of things we could be doing that make sense. The trouble is that the dirty hippies and the loonie left have taken up these issues and removed most of the credibility from the topic. well, I'm here to tell ya "no more." Crazy people aren't the only ones concerned about the environment, sustainability, community, etc. Those who would ridicule *the issue* of environmental stewardship are behaving ignorantly.

Tell the truth: when you look out at the nearest "big" city (Even cities the size of Cleveland, OH), do you enjoy the brown air that you can see hovering overhead? No, of course not. Well, there are reasonable things that we can all do to reduce things like the smog, the waste of water, etc. Ok, off the soap box, ut it's not just for hippies and lefties anymore.

Once across the dam, we were back to miles of desert landscape. This time there were more signs of life than previously seen in Utah, so we didn't get that "all alone" feeling.

After about 4.5 hours or so, in the dark, we came upon our home-away-from-home for the next two night. Best Western Grand Canyon. This was billed as the only "resort hotel" near the Canyon. It was nice and all, but it's not what I'd call a "resort." They did have a bowling alley in the basement.

We were staying in a town called Tusayan, AZ, about a mile from the entrance to the Grand Canyon. We got up the next morning and headed off. After paying for our vehicle to enter the park, we drove the few miles to the rim. Along the way, we had to stop for a breakfasting ELK!


Elk!


Continuing on to the first parking lot/overlook area, we got out to take a look.





More BIG!

Emily said she knew it was "big" but she had no idea how big. The rock walls in Utah's Silent City suddenly become toys compared to the grandeur and immensity of this mile-deep, 277-mile-long cleft. It's as stunning as I remember. What an absolutely amazing sight. If you haven't had the chance to see it, make time. It is beyond words, and it scoffs at cameras, as if to say "Ha! You can't capture me, you can barely comprehend my vast expanse and varied climates and landscapes. Go ahead and try...but they won't get it."

Go. See it.

While there you have the opportunity to participate in a bunch of ranger-led programs ranging from geography to the California Condor to a history of man and the Canyon. We took part in a program about fossils. It was very interesting and informative, and on top of that, you have a nearly private audience with a park ranger. Sure, you'll have to tell your kids that instead of "billions of years" the funn all happened in Noah's flood, but other than that, it was great.


Learning about and studying fossils. SHHH! Don't tell them it's EDUCATIONAL!


Honest to gosh fossil of a sea creature...At 7000 feet! In the Desert!


Rare Fossils!

One of the kids asked me "Ranger Emily says fossils are very very rare, and yet we saw hundreds today. What's the deal?" So I explained it..."Fossils are rare, but there was this time when the land was torn apart and everything was completely thrown into upheaval and turned upside down very rapidly. Remember Noah?"

"Oooohhhh yeeaaahhhh..."



Old gnarly pine tree.


After the session with "Ranger Emily" and the fossils, since we were on the Bright Angel Fault, I thought it appropriate to hike a small portion of the Bright Angel Trail with the kids.




Some of the shorter people in the group were thinking about skipping this short hike, but when they asked if we would be back the next day, and I told them that we had to head for home, they changed their minds. I thought that was very cool.

So we hiked a (very) little bit.



On the Bright Angel Trail.

I have a picture from 1984 of my brother and me in the arch on the bright angel trail. I really hope I'll be able to find it. It will go good with the less blury version of this one:


On the Bright Angel Trail.


Just past that arch, there are some petroglyphs on the wall. Very cool stuff. Unfortunately, the pictures didn't come out so good.

We hiked back up to the top and made our way to the Ranger Station. The kids had gotten some workbooks from the Park Service and completed the requirements listed within, so after a brief examination by the ranger on duty, there was a little ceremony where they were sworn in as Junior Rangers!


Junior Rangers


A funny thing happened on the way to the general store. The Grand Canyon National Park has a General Store, a couple other gift shops, a post office, and a bank. I just HAD to take this picture. "regular" readers know why. :-)




After the bank visit, we decided to have a meal at the deli in the General Store. We could not believe the size of the ravens outside this establishment. I guess we're back to that "big" thing again.


Nevermore!


When you go to the Grand Canyon, and you should go, there is something else you must see. There is a National Geographic Grand Canyon Visitors Center in Tusayan. Inside there is an Imax movie called "Grand Canyon: The Hidden Secrets." It's a really good film that tells you about some of the history in the canyon, and takes you to places you won't see. You will ride a boat down portions of the Colorado river, fly over the ancient rocks, and explore with Major John Wesley Powell. It's a 34 minute movie, and it's worth the money. Go. See it.


(Image from National Geographic site)


As night fell over the Grand Canyon, we were on a westbound shuttle bus. The best place to see sunset, and the best glimpses of the Colorado River, are from the western end of the National Park. It was cloudy, so the sunset was not great, until the sun got to a low hole below the horizon. Then the clouds over the canyon lit up in a vivid pink and purple. I wish I had a picture of that to share with you.

We rode the shuttle back to the Bright Angel Lodge. You have to take shuttles around most of the park these days. The roads are largely closed to private vehicles. If you look at some of the above pictures of the canyon, you can see a white fog, or low clouds in the canyon. As we walked back to our van, we looked north and saw the source of that. FIRE! The park service is doing controlled burns on the north rim and the smoke wafts down into the canyon and sort of hangs. On windier days it moves out in the afternoon, but not this day. After the sun had set, we could look north and see the orange glow of the massive fires on the north rim as they cleansed away the old and made way for the new.


Fire on the North Rim


We returned to our hotel to spend the night. The sense that something great was now ended seemed to hang over us. We all knew we were leaving in the morning and going back to the way things were, the mundane struggle that had always been. We had escaped for a while, but we were going back.

Next time: The End: An Ending.