I typed most of this on our drive yesterday and low and behold, I lost my internet signal somewhere in Utah and lost part of this post. So I had to recreate it after the first few paragraphs. Most frustrating!
Just saw a sign that says No Service for 83 miles! Pat filled up the tank right before arriving in Brian Head so we are fine gas wise. Lets just hope no one needs a bathroom break.
We left Sedona to see the Grand Canyon on Tuesday. By pure luck our timing was good because the guide books tell us that the best time to avoid the worst of the summer crowds is to visit the Grand Canyon in the middle of the week. I will take a moment to share some of the things we found puzzling about visitng the Grand Canyon. The town we stayed in near the South Rim is called Tusayon. It is about 7 miles from the entrance to the park. With 4.5 MILLION visitors to this entrance alone, (there are several entrances to this huge park) you would imagine a huge strip of hotels and shopping and various other services. We estimate there might have been 6 hotels and maybe 10 restaurants (including the hotel restaurants) along a small portion of the road to the Grand Canyon! This befuddles us because we can imagine how great a boardwalk type central entertainment development would succeed. You have all these families and individuals from all over the world to see one of the 7 natural wonders of the world and really nothing for them to do when they are not clammoring to enter the park and take photos. It boggles the mind. And beleive me, there are miles of open space to put something like this (lest you think I am a developer crazy person). No endangered species of any kind would be bothered.
The other astonishing thing that Pat and I both noticed right away was that there are not many guard rails along the edge of the Grand Canyon. I realize that the government can not afford to put a rail along every part of the Grand Canyon edge, but I think a few more tax dollars could be devoted to this cause. The guard rails that are there are only knee high in some cases! It makes you wonder why you do not hear about more accidental deaths at the Grand Canyon. WE had a vice grip on Fiona whenever we got out at the various viewing locations.
Pat and I decided to join a private tour guide to see the Grand Canyon since for a variety of reasons (parking, knowledge of best overlooks, educational aspects to name a few) our time would be better spent in the hands of an expert since we really had only one full day to visit the park. We consulted with the concierge at the hotel who recommended Canyon Dave tours. ANyone who knows Patrick well, knows that this was a huge concession as he does not like not being in control over his destiny in any kind of vehicle. We did not visit Martha's Vinyard when we were in Cape Cod because there was a shuttle bus and a ferry involved. After two weeks of driving many hours made him look forward to being the passenger for the day. I was grateful that Pat made this concession because I envisioned him screeching up to three or four viewing locations and giving us 1 and a half minutes to quickly capture the essence of the Grand Canyon with our cameras. We ended up doing this the next day on our way out of town headed to Brian Head Utah.
We would be in a van with the possibility of up to 6 other people. We had hoped that our mid week visit would make the additional possible people joining us low. No such luck! When Canyon Dave pulled up there were already two empty nesters in the first or four rows of back seat benches. I cringed thinking they were disspointed seeing our lively crew (Fiona being lively enough for all of us really) start piling into the van. Fiona and Tierney popped into the next row where Fiona announced that she wanted to sit with Tierney alone. My split minute decision making skills have been diminished from all this traveling and I agreed with her. Plus it was nice to see her wanting to be with her older sister and I thought Tierney might enjoy being chosen as the preferred seat mate. So I tried the next row, thinking I might grab the window seat for photo taking. Alas, Canyon Dave explained that there were three more people joining us. And as Pat explained in the earlier post, I am not one to harrass people and generally like to keep the peace. so I saw that my last choice was to wedge my middle age body in between our teenage sons in the last row (why they chose the last row is a mystery to me and even them when later asked WHY not the third row???) the very last row. I had to duck under two rows of seat belts that crossed from the passenger side of the van to secure the passengers on the edge of each row with my back pack filled with two cameras and various other traveling items (sunscreen, small purse, sunglasses sanitary wipes, kleenex, etc) which is not light! I know elegance was not the word to use my movements to reach that back row (and dreaded middle seat). In case you are wondering where my betrothed was sitting, he had been offered the prime front passenger seat next to Canyon Dave. I guess there are benefits to being a big guy and this was one of those instances.
We reached the next pick up point and it was not three but four new people. Two of which were young boys who ended up being friendly with Fiona and made it easier on each set of parents as what Fiona didn't think to do, these young boys would do. Nothing bad. just the usual case of the wiggles or not paying attention. By the end of the tour eveyone got along quite well. And the mother from the other family was brave enough to be seated next to our chatty daughter the rest of the drive.
Canyon Dave proved to be a great leader. He was previously a geology professor in a college near Tuscan. He decided 9 years ago to use this knowledge to educate people visiting the Grand Canyon. He had great hand outs and lots of rock samples that we oculd pass around to see what the different layers of rock in the Canyon were made from. At one point, he brought us to a viewing location and had us sitting in camp chairs lined up classroom style with him in front of us and the Canyon beyond him. I will post a photo of this when I get a chance to go through the bajillion photos I have taken since San Antonio! It is pretty wild looking to see the backround behind him. And Patrick and I got just a bit nervous when he asked Fiona to get up and explain something about a rock next to him. He was standing just a few yards from the edge of what looked like a sheer drop off point. We were both poised to dive on top of Fiona had she gotten too close the edge.
Canyon Dave then took us an hour drive to a Navajo Nation restaurant and store. We both joked later that we were not very sure what to expect when he told us about this lunch locale. Nothing against our Native American bretheren, but we had not had alot of experience with Navajo restaurants. But we were pleasantly surprised at this operation in many aspects. It was clean, well run, and the people working there were really friendly and helpful. And based on the houses we past that were run down with car parts, debris in hte yards and tires on many of the rooves (never did figure out what that was all about), I think most people would have been a bit suspect. The menu had a few Navajo items and basic American fare. We kept hearing about the Navajo Taco which four of us tried and liked. It was basically all the ingredients of a taco except trade out the taco shell for a deep fried Navajo bread that tasted like a fried pastry. It was delicious and I am scared to think of how the deep fried batter was going to boost my cholesteral!
The Navajo people are great capitalists. To enter the restaurant you must first go through the never ending store of all trinkets with Arizona or Grand Canyon engraved or embroidered on them! And then there were all things Native American....baskets, pottery, blankets, weavings, artwork...you name it, they had it. And navigating Fiona through this was quite a task. Wemanaged to get away with a dreamweaver and a necklace made from juniper berries that the Navajo harvest, boil, then dry out for three days and push a needle through to make them into beads. Paying 7 dollars for this seemed quite reasonable after hearing the painstaking labor they go through to get the beads. The boys opted for pocket knives with Arizona carved into the side. I spent the rest of the ride wedged in between them asking them to please try the pocket knives out when were were in much more open space! Tierney opted for a pen with Grand Canyon on the side..most practical of her!
After lunch and shopping Dave took us to part of the painted desert near the restaurant. We found this to be as interesting as seeing the Grand Canyon. He had found a part of the desert that had petrified wood that we could look at up close (as opposed to our drive by viewing the day before) and even take a few pieces with us. Dave must have a relationship with the Navajo people near here as we know that not just anyone could take this unmarked road and start wondering around the desert and taking pieces of petrified wood. It felt like it was 1000 degrees where we were so we only stayed out there for about 15 minutes or so.
Being the person with the large back pack also means that all family members hand over things like petrified wood from Navajo land for me to carry back. I was trying to wedge the smaller pieces into my bag while explaining that pieces larger than that must be carried by them.
We made one last stop to get a look at the canyon before heading back to our hotels. It was this last time getting into the car that I simply handed over the back pack to Patrick explaining that I could not lug it one more time back to the final row in the van. After lifted it he understood.
We really enjoyed Canyon Dave's tour. My only complaint would have been that he seemed more intent on talking about the Canyon and taking us to the Navajo restaurant than stopping to more viewing locations to get photos. But I would still opt for the guided tour over trying to do it ourselves. And we learned so much that we would never have had the time to discover on our own. Even the kids agreed that they enjoyed the tour even though it took about 8 hours.
Pat did allow us a few more peeks at the Grand Canyon, as mentioned, as we headed to Utah. He even got out of the car a few times! We left town by 9 or 9:30 and it was easy to park and snap a few photos and keep moving. It seems ridiculous in some ways to even attempt to photograph it and do it justice. But on the other hand, I wanted to attempt this since I may never pass this way again. Unless Patrick and I develop a super tourist trap in Tusayon, AZ one day! Ha!
We drove through the State of Utah to a moutnain top ski resort in Brian Head. It is not listed on most maps and mapquest does not recognize it. And upon arriving after 8 hours of driving, it had a Steven King feel to it from the desolate mountain to there being just a few cars out front. It ended up being a terrific lodge that somehow stayed open in the summer with 30 percent occupancy and offering great meals in the hotel. And the next best thing we learned about it was that it had WASHING MACHINES AND DRYERS!!! So we got caught up on our laundry which was getting near crisis level. And unlike the El Paso location, there were several machines. And these were commercial grade so I could really load those babies up!
The state of Utah is filled with some amazing rock forms and vistas. We did not have time to include some of their great National Parks and Monuments but hope to try that some other time. The ride up the mountain to Brian Head was unusual as we went from a very rocky environment, similar to Araizona, to a cool alpine like environment.
AS you learned from my husband's post I failed to obtain the preferred breakfast item. But even he realizes that we both can't be type A people or we would not have made it on this trip this long without a mutiny!
We continued on yesterday and completed the Lonliest Road drive on route 50 across the state of Nevada. Yes, we drove across the state of Nevada in a day! I had expected it to be really hot and desert like once we entered Nevada. No such thing at all! And I had expected to see empty towns with not much going on. We had a couple of guide books and sought out the towns that had the most services offered. This meant there might be one or two gas stations and a few diners. They were sometimes 100 miles apart (thus the name the Lonliest Road), but we knew how to plan our stops. The other thing that surprised us was that the temperatures in that part of Nevada were much cooler than we had expected. In the mountain towns the temps were in the low 70's. It was not until we got about 50 miles from Fallon where there is a Naval Air Station (I think some of the opening scenes from Top Gun were filmed here) that it became desert like in the terrain and the temperature shot up into the 90's.
We passed through 12 moutain ranges. I am going to try to post this now because the intenet looks like it is acting up and there might be a mutiny if I have to type this again!
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.