It’s Not Me, It’s Him, Right?

Days #8 and #9 — Hole in the Ground

First discovered by the ancient Pueblo people, first seen by a European in 1540 and championed by Teddy Roosevelt as a national treasure, The Grand Canyon now serves as America’s preeminent tribute to riding a bus.  Oh, you occasionally see a beautiful big hole, but you will mostly see a sign reminding you not to stand beyond the white line.

The South rim of the canyon is accessible by only one route — Arizona 64, a mostly two lane road that is a long ways away from any real towns.  As you get to the front door in order to pay, you are greeted by a friendly Yooper who is just thrilled to see someone else speak English.  The first lesson you learn about the Grand Canyon is that Americans don’t seem to visit the place, it is simply a stop on the way to Disneyland for the the citizens of the European Union.

When you park your car, the first thing you do is hop onto a bus.  This first bus is deceiving, because it’s not very full and it goes to its destination quite quickly.  We first decide to go on a guided tour, which would start at one of the gift shops.  The nice lady, although clearly enthused about her job, bored us to tears in about 10 minutes waxing about pine nuts and juniper trees.  We left the tour and started out on our own, although my escape involved a brief jump into the cavern and a long climb back up.

Being at altitude, the first thing you want to do is to make sure you have enough water.  And most stores in the park sell a 1.5 liter bottle of water for $2, which is not bad for concession prices.  One problem — they do not chill the water.  It is only sold at room temperature.  So although it seems great when you buy the water at 10:30, by 5:00 you are putting the bottle inside fire pits just to cool it down a bit.

After some looks around the center area of the park, it’s time to go out into the “red trails”, a series of nine points spaced anywhere from 1/2 mile to 2 miles apart.  After the second point and the requisite pictures, we decide since the 3rd point is close to the 2nd, we can hike that one.  Big…honking…mistake.   This really zapped our energy.   Which means from that point on, it’s bus time between stops.

However, the buses on the “red trails” are much more crowded, don’t come as frequently and involve frequent invocations by the driver to not stand in the white area.  These invocations generally went unheeded, as the perpetrators of said infraction were pre-teen Europeans with little command of English.  Since the bus driver would not leave until this was rectified, one of the token Americans on the bus would simply nudge the kid until everything was kosher.

Another fun amenity of the red trail is only the furthest stop from the center of the park — Hermits’ Rest — features any sort of bathroom or refreshments.  So our plan to stop at all nine points ended up being stopping at 5 of the first 6 and then an immediate trip to Hermits to keep ourselves from going insane due to altitude sickness and dehydration, and also to put our water bottle in the snack bar’s microwave to cool it down a bit.  Although I’m in much better shape than I was 4 months ago — I was still not in shape for this.  And we’ve begun to believe that Susan is actually Inuit and cannot handle anything above 80 degrees.  And when you see a family of six coming in on bicycles from other parts, you just want to cry.

At this point, we had decided that people were no longer our friends and we needed to go to a quieter place in the park.  However, the place we decided was 45 miles away from our current location, which meant two bus rides and a 28 mile car jaunt.  There is nothing more fun than being packed into a standing-room only bus where nobody speaks English.  This lasted 40 minutes.  We then had another 25 minute bus ride to our car, and standing for both legs.  We finally get to the car and head over to the lighthouse.  We would think the Watchtower would have less people.

Sadly, we were mistaken.  Even more families with little control of their spawn and ruining what should have been a nice, reflective sunset.  Also scaring the crap out of me was Susan taking pictures a foot from the ledge.  She will contend she was farther away, but as soon as I get the images back from NASA I will be vindicated.  Once the sun finally disappeared over the north rim, people actually applauded.  Which is good I guess, because if the sunset didn’t happen, humanity would be doomed.  It’s important to be thankful for the little things.

After a long drive back, it was time to get back to the Canyon Country Inn for a quick night of sleep before heading out to California.  And nothing says country hospitality more than no air conditioning and Otis Spunkmeyer muffins.  To sort of keep ourselves at least in the running for a Bronze medal for Route 66 travels, we at least did the Williams-Kingman jog on 66.  At one stop in the gift shop, we ran into yet another German family.  Why are we encountering so many Germans?  And why does even cute back-and-forth between a mother and her daughter sound like threats of imminent danger?

We then head into the fun and excitement of the Eastern California leg.  Deciding that we had to do something out of the car, we head up to Mitchell Cave, a former mine about 100 miles east of Barstow.  This was a 16-mile trek where we encountered not a single car.  Getting up to the cave, Susan took some pictures of the vista and cacti.  On the way down, Susan all of a sudden yelled “Cows!”  Thinking I was about to hit a cow, but saw none, I then realize she wanted to take a picture of cows she somehow saw.  So, despite the fact we were in 93 degree desert heat, she somehow convinced four cows to pose for a picture.  I was freaking out because of their proximity.  Although I do have the cow insurance rider on the rental car, it does not cover Longhorns.

We finally decided after 400+ miles to call it for the day, and stopped in Victorville.  We are in an absolutely amazing Comfort Suites for a low price, so we’re guessing money laundering has gone upscale.  If you may remember from a previous day’s entry, I had great joy remembering a restaurant from the past.  Susan had great memories of El Pollo Loco when living in South Florida, so we decided to eat at one here.  After having a frankly crappy meal, we wondered what went wrong, since the menu was nothing like she remembered.  We then found out that the place she went to was actually a different chain, and now goes under the name Pollo Tropical.  Sadly for us, this chain confines itself to Florida in such cities as West Palm Beach, Orlando, North Bergen and Hartford.

Up next: Our final jaunt to Santa Monica (and we promise to actually use Route 66 for the remainder).