withoutwhatifs

The Grand Canyon. As I mentioned in my last post, my dad has talked about wanting to go to the Grand Canyon forever. So here we are…

We drove into the park and headed to our campground. Thankfully, Tara had the presence of mind to call ahead and actually reserve a site for us. No site stalking, no “where are we going to stay”, no being there at 5am… we just got there and had a site. It was great. Plus, we didn’t want to put Spank through the full road trip experience and kill a night at a Walmart. So we have a reservation and it’s awesome. We get the camper set up and head in to the Mather viewing point. The Mather viewing point is located close to a visitor center so it was bananas type crowded. But we made out way to the look out and Tara and I were just amazed… after a minute I realize that Spank is… well, he’s not near the edge, that’s for damn sure. After some encouragement, we get him to the fence and he really seemed to be in awe. It’s just so big and “grand”, that I don’t know in all the years of him saying he wanted to see it, if this is what he expected.

We continued down the trail to a few more view points and at every turn I could hear my dad behind us… “what are you thinking”… “Jesus, get away from the edge”… “what’s the matter with that person”. He had serious issues with people and their need to be on the brink of death for the best peace sign selfies… but despite Spank’s concern for the general public and their poor decisions, we continued on to different points along the canyon. When all of a sudden, who makes a guest appearance? Father Christmas himself… Things must be on cruise control.

Once we had our fill of site seeing for the day, we headed to the Canyon Village area. This is where the restaurants and a bazillion stores are located. There’s also the El Tovar Hotel which was a historic hotel in the park. I wasn’t going to put this in, and Tara told me not to, but I feel like it was part of the trip. We were just looking for a place to grab a small bite to eat and drink before heading back to our site. We went into the El Tovar and saw their bar, didn’t look bad but we didn’t want to go to the first place we saw, so we checked out another place. Then we were told that the other building had restaurants, so we walked to that building. The first place was kind of a dud, so we continued.. again… to the next place which we walked into and… I just couldn’t do it… When you’re at the Grand Canyon and want to have a beer, you want to be in a place that feels like an old lodge, or something with character… so you know you’re somewhere special. This was not that place. After having to ask twice to not be seated next to the kitchen, I finally told Tara and my dad, No. I don’t want to be in here, let alone eat here. When we walked in I immediately felt like I was 80 years old (nothing wrong with that… it’s just that I’m not 80), sitting in a bad, discount, “all you can eat” restaurant in a cheap casino. I know that may sound crazy, but I’ve eaten in a bad, discount, “all you can eat” restaurant in a cheap casino… in Atlantic City… So we left. I apologized to Tara and my dad, and said, let’s just go back to the first bar. We got the bar in the El Tovar Hotel, had a couple beers, and split an app, and it was great. The bar was dark wood, window view of the canyon… we felt like we were somewhere a little more special. After this we decided to hit the General Store for some food and beer on our way back to our campsite. That night we ate… drank, and really just enjoyed the nice quiet campsite with our fire. The firewood was from a place in Sedona that we hadn’t used, and truth be told, I had some issues getting a good fire started. I was in and out of the camper and I don’t know what happened, but I came out of the camper, and the fire was roaring, and all my dad said was… “Well, good thing Tara was able to get the fire going.” I still have no idea what really happened out there. We decided to call it and head to bed since tomorrow we’d be hiking into the Canyon a little bit and wanted to be rested. Spank headed for the front seat of the truck, with our zero degree sleeping bag, and Tara, Murphy and I were in the camper… with our lighter 55 degree sleeping bags.

That night the temperature dropped to about 38 degrees. Good thing the big fella had the good sleeping bag. Even in the camper, Tara, Murphy and I were kind of cold. It was definitely hard to get out from under the covers and start coffee… but I did, and then we got right into breakfast. On our trip, Tara and I have tried to use everything as far as food goes. We hate to throw anything away, because we’re basically throwing away money. So, we had some left overs that I didn’t want to waste. I cut up some of the left over pork from our tacos a night or two before, threw it in a pan with some diced onion, green pepper, rice, and finally eggs. It was damn good if I do say so myself. Adding the pork and rice seemed to make the eggs go a lot further.

So, we’re up, we’re fed, we’re dressed (warm… it’s windy and kind of cool at the Grand Canyon) and ready for our hike. As I said in the Sedona post, Tara tried to find a hike that would be fun and not that grueling. As it turns out, this hike would be both. We drove over to get as close to the trailhead as we could, you can’t drive to the Kaibab Trailhead, they only allow the shuttle buses, so we parked close and walked to the trailhead. It did not take Spank long to figure out that this was not going to be an easy stroll around the rim. We planned to go to OohAhh Point, which was .9 miles into (down.. again) the canyon and .9 out (up…again). The trail is about 4 to 5 feet wide, some areas more, some areas less, and it really tested my dad’s fear of heights. The trail starts with a series of switchbacks, which are slightly crowded, but not to the point where it seems unsafe. The trail is also laced with mule poop. This is one of the trails that you can ride a Burro (Mule) into the canyon, only you have to book the ride about 2 years in advance. Anyways, the trail continues with switchbacks and then runs long the side of the canyon, descending the entire time. I should note here that even though the trail is only .9 miles, there is just over an 800ft elevation change. That’s roughly 60 stories if we’re measuring by buildings, just to give you an idea. So, we go down, and down, and we’re along this narrow trail, and he hasn’t said anything yet, but I know what my dad was thinking… if I’m going down this much, to get out, I have to go up too… There was a saying at the Grand Canyon, it was on posters, guides used it… it’s “Hiking in is optional, hiking out is mandatory”. Truer words have never been spoken. (I’m sure they have but you know what I mean) It is very safe to say, that on the way out (up) we took our time. We stopped for water, we stopped to catch our breath… it was a super challenging hike out… and I don’t just mean for my dad, but for Tara and I too.

Finally, we made it to the top and it was quickly decided that we were going to get firewood, food and beer, and we were going to do very little for the rest of the day. We got back to the site and it was cold and windy… so we started a fire to warm up, and again, had a few drinks. For dinner, we threw a couple pizzas on the fire and cooked them over the coals. Surprisingly, it worked really well and the pizzas were great. Exhausted from the death defying hike, coupled with the cold weather, we called it a night.

In the morning, it was 28 degrees. That’s below freezing… We ate breakfast, and cleaned up our site. We got our stuff together and headed south. Today we would be stopping in Flagstaff before continuing on to Phoenix so that my dad could catch his flight the next morning. We drove out of the Grand Canyon through the East entrance (we came in through the South entrance) so along the way we hit few view points that we hadn’t seen and also stopped at the Desert view Watchtower. It was pretty impressive and the views were great. We made sure my dad had his fill of the Grand Canyon, he said he did, so we headed out.

Along the way we drove by a ton of roadside native markets. Unfortunately, the large majority of them (99%) were closed. it may have been because it was a Tuesday… maybe their busier on the weekends? It sure didn’t look it though. Roadside stand after roadside stand… closed, closed, closed. Then driving down the highway we started to see signs for Cameron Trading Post. The signs weren’t as bad as Wall Drug from when we were in South Dakota, but along the same lines. I said we have to stop and check it out… So we did, and now I know why all the little stands where closed. This was the Walmart of “Native American” items. Although, I don’t know many “Native Americans” living in China, Taiwan, or Mexico, but that’s where all their products were made. This place was a huge tourist destination (trap) right down to the man at the door with the “authentic native american” haircut… just a bummer.

We continued to Flagstaff, where we grabbed a bite to eat and walked the main street. Flagstaff is much smaller than I always thought it was. It’s really just a town. I always thought it was closer to a small city but that is definitely not the case. So we didn’t spend much time here, and pushed on to Phoenix. I think we were all pretty beat by this point. We got to the hotel, checked in, relaxed, headed down to the restaurant to grab some dinner and passed out. Next morning, we got up and drove Spank back to the airport so that he could catch his flight home. It was great to have my dad be able to join us for a section of our trip, especially since it was the Grand Canyon. He got to live a little of the road life while he was with us… and his biggest problem will now be where to go next.

It was great to have you big fella, Murphy misses you already.