Friday, June 22, 2007

Grand Canyon Here We Come!


Last night before bed, we took the kids out for some ice cream. After dinner we let them run around the playground for a while, trying to get them to expel any remaining energy they held in reserve. My youngest son became very upset when he realized that he lost his Jr. Ranger badge from the Petrified Forest. I looked everywhere that night with flashlight in hand, trying to find his badge. I was unsuccessful and unfortunately he went to be upset. So, I got up extra early this morning, got in the jeep and headed back to the Petrified Forest National Park (44 miles round trip) so I could bribe the local park ranger into giving me a new badge. I walked into the visitor center right when they opened at 7:00am and explained to the ranger on duty that I was not a crackpot that my youngest son really did lose his badge and no it was not really for me. It was not a sure thing but once I produced his official Jr. Park Ranger workbook, signed and dated by one of the other rangers, she had no choice but to hand over the goods. When I got back I told my son that I had been out looking for his badge and could not find it anywhere. You could instantly see the disappointment cloud his face. Then I said, “So….I went back to the park this morning and I got you a new one”. He was elated and gave me a hug so tight that I knew it was important to him. This just became the best moment of the trip for me.

We ate breakfast at our favorite campground pancake bistro, packed up the Turd and headed east. Check in time at the Grand Canyon was 12:00 noon, but we had a few stops to make along the way. First up Winslow, Arizona, a town made famous by the Eagles song, “Take it Easy”. There actually is a corner in Winslow, Arizona where people stop for pictures and such. Unfortunately a fire damaged a number of buildings in Winslow and temporarily closed the corner so we opted to move on. The second stop was Meteor Crater. You have undoubtedly seen pictures of this impact crater on TV or in the movies. It is the biggest, most well preserved meteor impact crater in the world. 700 feet deep and 4,000 feet wide, the crater was made by a meteor approximately 150 feet long, weighing several hundred thousand tons and traveling in excess of 26,000 miles per hour. After the crater, we decided to stop at Walnut Canyon, a sheer faced canyon outside Flagstaff, Arizona and in the shadow of the San Francisco Mountain Range. Walnut Canyon is magnificently beautiful place and another great opportunity for a moderate hike. The canyon was home to the Sanagua, a resourceful people who lived in cliff dwellings carved high into the canyon walls. It was a beautiful hike covering a mile or so, much of it straight up and straight down. Again the kids participated in the Junior Ranger program, earning their badges and certificates.

We decided to head north up highway 89 to old highway 64 or the desert view rout. This is a slightly longer rout but well worth it. Leaving Flagstaff you pass through the San Francisco mountain range, featuring an old dormant volcano that tops out at over 12, 500 feet above sea level, what a sight. You then travel through the Coconino National Forest until you come to highway 64. At this point you see the beginnings of the canyon, and as you travel west, you marvel at how quickly it grows before your eyes. When we finally reached the park entrance we were told that there was no admission charge, because there was a major accident that just occurred between the western entrance and the South Rim village where we were staying. The ranger said it would be three hours or so before the road would open so we were free to pull over in the parking area until the park reopened. Well that was certainly par for the course. We could drive to the parks south entrance, but that would have taken three hours and the Turd needed a break. As fate would have it, an RV exploded on the desert view drive, propelling flames and fuel into the dry forest. You could see the smoke billowing from miles away, and you had to wonder if they weren’t going to have to evacuate the park. Anyway, we pulled into the desert view area of the park, a beautiful village with a huge stone tower built on an outcropping of rock in the far east corner of the park. You could see the beautiful structure from the parking lot, though you could not see the actual canyon yet. Heading towards the tower on a winding path you are teased by glimpses of the canyon, colors and light mostly, and then you come around a corner and there it is. If you have never seen the Grand Canyon, believe me when I say that nothing can prepare you for the enormity of what you see. I mean you know it is going to be big, you know it is going to be vast and you know it is going to be impressive. After seeing it for the first time, I can only say that my definitions for big, vast and impressive have all changed. We resigned ourselves to the fact that we would be spending our first night at the Grand Canyon in a parking lot with no power, little water and unable to extend the slide out. They reopened the road a couple of hours later and we made it to the campground around 9:00pm. We finally made it, everyone was excited and anticipating our time here. However our Grand Canyon adventure would have to wait until tomorrow as we quickly ate dinner and retired for the evening.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well written article.