Now, for the main event. The big one. The grand canyon.
The drive from Page to the Grand Canyon was great. I goofed and was getting low on gas. The stretches of nothingness in AZ made me think anything below half a tank was low. My anxiety was eased when I found that there was a gas station IN the national park. Heck, there was an entire town.
The drive was short compared to the others. We first stopped at the Watchtower, which I thought was the destination. Nope. Huge. After a quick jaunt to the watchtower and the gift shop (needed my morning coffee), we drove further in towards the visitor center. Now, this lived up more to my expectations. Our first agenda was to get food. We were hungry.
There was an e-bike rental store that sold food. Odd combination. But there was nothing else nearby, no complaints. As expected, we overpaid for mediocre food. We both got burritos that were palatable with hot sauce. When we sat down to eat it, however, there was this lovely RAVEN cawing at us form the next table. Initially, it was jumping between two tables eating the scraps. It did not like us sitting there. It barked at us more, but flew to the roof within minutes. Yes, minutes. It stood there angry for a while.
We made our way back to the visitor center to get maps and shuttle information. We were going to hike for a good bit, and then take a shuttle back to the visitor center. While there, we watched the informational introductory video playing in a small side theatre. It gave us a history of the place and an overview of what to expect. It felt like selling a product to someone who’d bought it already. I wanted out of the theatre and towards the canyon!
Finally, it was time to hike the rim! What would have otherwise been a short one hour hike from the visitor center to the village, got stretched out because I kept stopping to ooh and ahhh at the sights. I had to take photos. I had to stand and SOAK in the sight. I needed to see the edge. It was consistent. It was marvelous. I am glad that I was not the only one doing it. The scale of everything is beyond comprehension. Every time you see it, it robs you of your breath. I mean, look at this picture.
Right? I kept wanting to see more of it. We were hoping to go to the geological museum there. But, accidentally walked right past it! The Smithsonian has warped our expectations on how big museums are. Unrealistic to expect them to be the size of Natural History or Air and Space. Once we noticed our blunder, we walked back about 20 minutes to go see it. It was good. It had a nice view out of the window. You could see the Colorado River from there. Lots of little exhibits on rocks and fossils. And, who would have expected it, a gift shop. I got a bunch of postcards.
It was thrilling to walk along the rim. I had wanted to walk all the way down to the river, but I know now that It would have destroyed me. I still needed to drive us to our lodging after all this.
We waited for the sunset to hit the rocks in the canyon. It was worth it. Like everything there, the landscape transformed in the sunset light. My only complaint is how significant the temperature drops after the sun goes away.
Driving back to the hotel that night was an exercise in balancing safety and exhilaration. I thought the drive through Dixie Forest was dark, this was Dark 2.0. I’m not sure how, but it felt darker. The roads were narrower. And well, it felt emptier. I was enjoying it. I wanted to floor the pedal. But safety. It did not help that when car came on the opposite lane, it blinded me.
We stopped for dinner in a hotel. It was one of those built-in restaurants. We could have done worse. We got to the hotel, again, near the end of check-in. But not cutting it as close as we had in the past. The clerk had a dog behind the desk. Cute. I was exhausted that night. We both were. The next morning would bring more driving. We wanted to get an early start for the next day. We’d be driving to Lake Mead, Hoover Dam, and back to Vegas.
The next day was a lot of driving. We got to Hoover dam about an hour before they closed. It was crowded. We drove up to the overlook. But didn’t park close enough to see things from the dam itself, or the tours inside. We couldn’t. There were so many people.
By the time we made it out of the dam, it was late. We would need to make a bee-line straight to our dinner reservation in Vegas. This meant we had to give up on seeing Lake Mead. A shame, particularly since we drove by it twice.
Dinner was at Eataly’s Toscana Ristorante & Bar. After finding parking (annoying) nearby, we barely made it to our reservation. As we sat down, we were greeted by a few trinkets they placed for us. It looks like somehow they knew it was our anniversary dinner (it’s obvious MYC mentioned it to them on the reservation in hindsight). It was a nice gesture. I felt out of place here. Everyone was dressed to a T, and here we were lugging our backpacks and in hiking attire. But that did not matter. A) we were hungry b) we were too tired to care. It was a nice dinner! We got Steak and Risotto. Both were cooked to perfection. One of those things that, when it is done well....it is done really well. I’d never had a steak like that before. And everything had truffle butter! They surprised us at the end by providing a tiramisu (which we were about to order!). That was another pleasant surprise!
After that, we made it to the hotel. We had about an hour before we had to head out to see Penn and Teller! I was excited. They’ve been the magicians in my mind since I was in Middle school. To see them live had always been a dream of mine. It was amazing that MYC was able to make it happen for me.
They were absolute experts at their craft. Even the illusions I was aware of, they did it with such mastery that it felt magic. They did a surprising amount of crowd-work. I enjoyed it thoroughly! An hour of their magic and comedy passed in a breath. It was an amazing footnote to end the trip on.
The next day was breakfast as Mr. Mammas and then off to the planes!
And now we’re back. A part of me feels stuck in the canyons and rocks. I’ll have to go back there to retrieve it.