Day 28: Grand Canyon: no, little canyons: si
We decided to go to the North Rim. M wanted to show the kids the canyon. On the way the road went through Zion. A national park. Our third. $20 a pop. An annual pass is $50. The GC would make the fourth. Doh! Oh well, We’re big spenders. We support the parks.
We stay the night in the southern border town of St. George, UT, the 3rd biggest city in the state. It pops up out of nowhere in the desert. I have no idea why and no one there explains it adequately. Prices are posted at motels as we cruise the strip: $40, $35, $28 $26, $23. We back up and try one for $26. I pick badly after M says she doesn’t want to talk to anyone. It’s a stinky, dumpy place. Don’t go there. A young boy shows me my room in the middle of the night. “So what do you do?” he asks as we cross the parking lot. “What kind of books?” “Sounds good.” I tell him it looks like he has a job, too, helping run this place. He says it’s not a job, he’s just helping his family. I say that’s all a good job ever is, and you’re doing as could as anyone can do, so be proud. I tell his dad later that he has a good kid. He says Yes, thanks, they’re proud of him. But the room sucks. And the next morning a wino is laying outside a nearby room smoking a cigarette, halfnaked, damaged. I feel bad about getting shafted.
I’m now against the Grand Canyon. It’s too big. The only reason it’s popular is because of its shock and spectacle value. And what’s that to me? How does that relate to nature? It’s pure brutal psychology. To get out of a car and see a 100 mile vista and a 5 mile plunge, what’s that? You can’t compute, or grasp it. I’ve decided I like Little Canyons. Any of them. They’re all great. Why single one out? Little canyons have the right scale. They’re awesome yet manageable. I was scared and unnerved at the darn Grand Canyon. Innocent people I’ve mentioned my heresy to roll their eyes then partly agree and say Yeah, you have to hike the canyon to appreciate it. Well, that’s not entirely easy either. I say that if you started at the bottom and hiked up then back down that you would earn any view you got and would have a comfortable feel for things as they got bigger and bigger. But to start at the top as generally everyone must is just to torture yourself with shock and spectacle all the way down where you can get your bearings. Then you could have a decent, human-scale hike back up, I agree. Otherwise, screw the GC.
We had lunch at a Little Canyon in the middle of nowhere. We caught a lizard and the kids went nuts. It was about 8″ long and had big blue blotches on its belly. Very pretty. He really loves pritty things, as he says it, which are mainly natural things, frogs, toads, bugs, flowers. He is so innocently charmed and swept away, and they are so pritty. He’s already embarrassed by a lot and somewhat avoids girly things, but I’m happy to see that pritty is still an OK access to heaven for him. He’s a real enunciator. We drove a two-track to the end of the canyon and checked out the little rushing river and the wide range that opens up. It’s gorgeous. The canyon wall has cave-like hollows in it. I hike up to them and see campfire ashes in a bunch of them. At night a fire would light up the whole 100 foot wall. We see bleached bones of cows. We look for rattlesnakes. No luck this whole trip! (I think you need to stay in the wild for a couple days. Get quiet. Get way off the track. Ranch-track being OK.)
As we drive I see little country roads going 50 miles across a valley, straight down from one range, across, and up the next. Gorgeous. This whole area, and the little humble abodes here and there out in it, is heavenly to me. The Four Corners area between Durango and Vegas, that’s the ticket.
We sleep in Tuba City. There’s a neat-looking restaurant at Marble Canyon 100 miles east of the GC. It’s an old log cabin lodge place, an eatery and inn. We pass it because M has road fever, then realize it’s getting dark and stop at the next place. It’s not so hot. Try the other. We’re near the start of the canyon and the place is full of rafters. We get a great, lingering, cosmic sunset for over an hour. A tough old waitress comes out of the restaurant and watches it with me as she smokes. It never gets old, she says. Then it’s dark.
Electrical storms roll across the 100 mile vista. Two cop cars pass us, lights flashing. We see them for the next half hour, getting tinier and tinier in the distance, the distance, the distance. An hour later we go past where we see them parked flashing at some house off by a mesa, way off. It’s a big open area. Real big.
The motels in Tuba City cost $70-$85. We notice a camping sign pointing away in town. We ask at the outskirts motel about it. She says it’s them and they rent RV and tentsites out back, too. We skip the $85 room and pitch in the hard gravel for $12. There’s a great truckstop at the main stoplight there, covered in autographed photos of Mexican bands.
A friend told us to eat at a café in Mancos and we do. It’s great. An oasis away from fast-food. It’s next to a river. They sell nice new and used books there. I think archeologist people hang out there as they come and go from Mesa Verde nearby. After Durango, America hits you full on and turns back into itself again and never lets up. Trash trash trash.
M Driving
Angel of the trip
Mexican cemetery near Four Corners
Sheepdogs and their sheep and goats. They were in the road. When we stopped, the dogs attacked our car. They don’t want anyone messing with their flock! They herded the flock across the road, no problem, even though there were some other cars and trucks passing. No human in sight
Angel
