It really is the Grand Canyon

We have been on the road since June 10th and have covered more than 5,000 miles and have been more than a dozen states and untold National Parks. It is August 2nd and for the first time, we sat around last night talking about some of the things we miss about home. I think the conversation was started because of a conversation with my mother. She said she had had her first corn from Dave Tuttle’s Riverside Farm. Tuttle’s Corn, whether from the Red Barn over in Dover of from Dave’s farm in North Berwick is the pinnacle of the fresh corn circuit and is something we have always looked forward to each and every summer. The other Tuttle forte is their strawberries but we had fresh ripened on the vine strawberries in California that were close to the Tuttle grade A but corn is another matter.

2 years ago, we went to Alaska and during corn season, we were in Alaska, several Canadian Provinces and the middle northern US states. They all had corn but nowhere is there such a fervor over corn as there is in New England. I know people who believe strongly in the old adage that you get the pot of water boiling before you even think about picking the corn, and others who won’t even look at corn from anywhere else in the world out of season because no matter how good it looks, it fails miserably to please the eater (who of course uses the Tuttle grading system (Tuttle is the top rung on the scale) to determine its quality).

We talked about the people at church and our friends. I enjoy mowing my lawn and being one with the little creatures that dwell in my yard. I rather enjoy the wealth of grocery stores that we have at our disposal and the vast variety of foods at our fingertips (I guess that says that we are running out of the foods that we brought with us and are relying more on the local economy which in the places we have been is very restricting). At home, I have 6 or 8 kinds of low carb bread to choose from….out here I am lucky to find any low carb bread at all (although western farms does have low carb bagels, something that I can’t find at home). Instead of 4 large grocery stores within a mile of each other and several specialty markets within 5 miles, I find a single store about the size of Janetos (without the great meat counter). We miss the long hot showers at home compared to the “wet your hair, turn off the water, rinse your hair and wet your body, turn off the water, wash yourself, rinse off, turn off the water” type of shower you need to take when you have a 4 gallon water heater. Oh, yeah, I miss my satellite TV. We are not out here to watch TV but it would be nice to have more than 4 channels and also it is nice to drive through 4 towns in 12 miles whereas out here it can be 100 miles between towns if you call a gas station and a convenience store a town. One more thing, I can breathe much better at sea level at home than I can at 5,000 to 10,000 feet where we have been for the last 6 weeks.

OK, I’m over it. Home is nice but it doesn’t have the alien landscape that we see out here and home will be there in November when we get back. It has to be more than 40 years since I have had a tan like the one I now sport (and that takes into account using sunscreen).

We spent another morning chasing the elusive package of Insulin. When the post office opened, we were there waiting. They still didn’t have the package. I gave them the information that I got from UPS and they told me that no one by that name worked at the post office. They suggested that perhaps UPS had dropped the package off at the Xanterra (they run all of the concessions in the park) warehouse and proceeded to dismiss me. I didn’t let that happen and they finally gave me an address (that I am sure I never would have found on my own). Finally, they softened a little and went out back and made a phone call finding that my package was indeed in the hands of Xanterra. After giving me some directions, Cheryl and I set out to find the Xanterra warehouse in a building marked 10 Albright across the street for the Albright Training Center.

We drove and drove and drove and finally saw the training center. Across the street was a fenced in compound with trucks and dumpsters and several buildings. We drove in and there on the front of the building was “10 Albright”. After going in the wrong door, we were directed to the UPS shipping and warehouse door (that wasn’t marked). We went into the warehouse and announced who we were. That brought a spark of recognition in the warehouseman’s eyes and he immediately headed out back returning with a package that was cold as it had been refrigerated since they had received it. Yea!!!

We had taken a cooler with some ice and several bottles of cold water into which we deposited the package. We then drove back to the market plaza, parked the car, gathered up our hiking stuff and headed for the shuttlebus stop. We had decided to give the shuttle system one more chance. Once again, the bus closed its doors when we were 20 feet away and drove off requiring us to wait 20 minutes for the next bus. Eventually, we boarded a shuttlebus and headed into the park.

We disembarked at the El Tovar Hotel, an old log style hotel built on the rim of the canyon. I am sure there was a better way to get to the hotel but the bus driver told us there were some stairs up on the banking (loose gravel) which you had to climb and which put you in the rear of the hotel. We walked around and checked out the building. It was a log structure inside with dark stain on the log surfaces making the lobby very dark and not at all cheery. Stephen King would relish this lobby.

Across the street, was Hopi House, a large gift shop specializing in Indian Crafts and other tourist worthy items. Returning to the rim trail, I found a place on the wall to sit in the shade and visit with a gentleman from Phoenix Arizona. He had worked in Alaska in the 50s on a radar installation and had lots of stories about getting to Alaska when the roads were all gravel.

We checked out the lodges along the rim and spent long periods of time staring into the canyon. We eventually worked our way down to the Outlook Studio (maybe once a studio but now just another gift shop). The studio had several levels of terraces that overlooked Bright Angel Trail. From there, you can follow much of the trail down to the plateau, one last flat respite before it plunges that last pitch down to the Colorado and Phantom Ranch.

We had seen a poster telling us that at 3:30, there would be a ranger presentation regarding the California Condors which live in the canyon and are an endangered species. While we were on the terraces, we saw a couple of the Condors circling in the air currents of the canyon. They are the biggest bird in the world with a 9 ½ foot wingspan. Not too many years ago, the total population of California Condors in the world had reached 22. Worried that they would soon be extinct, they were all captured. A Condor lays one egg every 2 years and raises the young for 2 years before throwing him/her out and starting over again. The scientists found a way to fool the birds into laying 3 eggs by removing the first two and raising them separately. The pair was allowed to raise the 3rd egg as they discovered that 3 was the limit and the condors gave up after the 3rd egg. This greatly increased the numbers of the new birds and soon they were depositing them back into the wild. The population after only 20 years has risen to 375 with 65 in Grand Canyon. They keep a close track on them and are now finding several birds that have been born and raised in the wild.

To see these birds in the air is magnificent. They don’t flap their wings but use their huge wingspan to glide on the thermals of the canyon. When they fly overhead, you can see the feathers on their wings move to adjust their flight. They make large turns by curving their wings differently but minor adjustments are made just by moving a couple of feathers.

After about an hour of watching the condors, ravens and turkey vultures, we still had a half hour before the lecture so we wandered down to the Bright Angel Trailhead to check it out. We are considering hiking down to the 1 ½ mile resthouse. That is a recommended hike for newbie’s at the canyon. It is strenuous as is pretty much anything at 7,000 feet and is fairly steep. It takes about 45 minutes to walk down and 2 to 3 hours to walk back up. The elevation change is 1,100 feet in a mile and a half. Most of our hikes have had less elevation change but if we get an early start, we should be in the shade much of the trip.

I have already given you much of the information we got from the ranger talk so we will return to camp. Another bus driving off when we are 100 feet (this time) away so we waited for 20 minutes for the next one. We returned to the market plaza, picked up our car and easily beat the bus back to Tusayan lounging in the relative comfort of our Toyota with no pushing and shoving and no one standing on our feet.

Today is moving day but it is a short move. We move from Tusayan into the park into Trailer Village, the parks RV park. That should be easy and almost effortless. Our shortest move, about 20 miles.

I wonder how many motorhomes that CruiseAmerica has. Every place we go, they outnumber privately owned coaches by a wide margin. They are colorful with their murals on every wall and you cannot mistake them for anything but a CruiseAmerica rental motorhome. Most of the ones we have seen have had Europeans driving them. It seems that Europe must be empty because everyone is over here. The fact that our economy is in the tank has made it a very good opportunity for the Europeans to come here for a visit.

Well, time to get breakfast and head into the park. We will have this afternoon and 2 full days before we move on. See ya.

This is the last afternoon of our time at the big ditch. We have had a great time. We have toured all around the South Rim of the canyon. After we moved into the park, we used the park shuttle system although we were not happy with it. Several times we had the door slammed in our faces forcing us to wait 20 minutes for the next one. Most times the bus we were denied was nearly empty (wonder why) and the bus that followed picking up all those denied (we were not the only ones) caused the bus to be bulging at the seams. A couple of times the bus driver opened the door just long enough to say the bus was full and we would have to wait as he headed for the exit. I think that the shuttle system could have been run a lot better and the drivers could have been a lot more polite (this is not to say that all drivers were jerks, just some (and we saw them over and over)).

We spent an afternoon checking out the rim where most of the lodges were. We went into each of the lodges on the rim (El Tovar Hotel, Bright Angel Lodge and the Thunderbird Lodge). There are a couple more but they are not perched on the rim. We checked out the two trails into the canyon. In the early days, there was a legal battle over the Bright Angel Trail and the park service built the Kaibab trail as a free alternative. Each of them is a difficult steep long trail hanging off the side of the canyon. The Kaibab trail has little shade and no water. Bright Angel has a couple of resthouses with water and some shade. The trail is about 9 miles long and meets up with the Kaibab trail near the bottom.

There is a suspension bridge over the Colorado that allows the hikers of both trails to gain access to Phantom Ranch, a lodge and set of cabins in the bottom of the canyon. The top sections of both trails are the steepest and the Bright Angel trail is the most popular. Lots of tourists set out on the trail to gain a taste of the inside of the canyon. We decided to try the Bright Angel Trail. We set no goals as I have been having a problem with the altitude. We packed a lunch and some water and made an early start down into the canyon.

There are several problems hiking in the canyon. The most significant is that it is a backwards mountain…you hike down before you hike up. When the hike is difficult, this can be a great problem because it is easy to go down and very difficult to go up. They tell you that for scheduling purposes, you should plan on 2 to 3 times as long to go up as down. Another problem is people who are not prepared to hike in the canyon. They do not realize that the temperature rises significantly as you descend. It is often 30 degrees or more hotter in the bottom. The altitude is another problem. The rim of the canyon is over 7,000 feet. This increases the difficulty of everything you do because there is significantly less oxygen at this altitude.

The first rest house is 1 ½ miles into the canyon and 1,100 feet of elevation change. The top of the trail was crowded with tourists of many nationalities. Many were hiking in the canyon in sandals and sneakers and some even with flip-flops. We saw people without water. The trail is spectacular. It is built right into the side of the canyon. The crowd thins as you descend and soon you have more room to walk. After several days of looking down, you start to look up to gauge how deep you have gone. There is a lot of sign of the mules that have descended before we got there. That has to be a thrill; however it is not for me. There is a 200 lb limit (including your stuff) and I do not fit that requirement. There are 2 trips you can take. The first is a one day trip that goes down to Indian Gardens, breaks for lunch and then climbs back to the rim. The second goes all the way to Phantom Ranch and stays overnight before returning the next morning via the Kaibab trial. After hiking part of the trial, I can honestly say that it looks scary. The trail is fairly wide for people but these mules are a lot bigger than I expected them to be. There are signs warning the hikers about the mules and telling them what to do when the mules approach. I hope these people pay more attention to those signs than they do to any of the others!

This is a big busy park. They claim between 4 and 5 million visitors a year and it seemed like they were all trying to get on the same busses that we were trying to get on. You hear more people speaking other languages than ours but that is partly due to the economy. Europe and South America has come to see America. Everywhere we have been has had a high proportion of foreign visitors. I think there were more rude people here than we have run into anywhere else and that includes the staff of the park. In 25,000 miles of motorhoming, this is the first time I have had anything stolen. We met a lot of people who did not seem concerned about the visitors. These were not a large portion of the people we dealt with. We certainly met a lot more nice people than rude ones but the rude ones were there and certainly stood out. In the short term, you notice the rude people but the long term memory of Grand Canyon will be of the nice people you met, the people who handled the crowds with grace and diplomacy and the people who smiled when they tried to help you.

Well, today is once again a travel day. This will be 5 nights just outside of Sedona and will be kind of a low key break after a couple of weeks of full time tourism. The car is already loaded (we never unhooked it) so all we have to do is pick up all the loose stuff and put it away and unhook our connections to the park and head out. Talk to ya all in a couple of days.

C&C