Arizona

In case anyone was wondering I did make it to the Grand Canyon. I suppose that it is called "Grand" simply because it is huge.

My initial plan was to drive out Tuesday evening, camp at the rim of the canyon and then hike down in the morning. It is a mile deep so I wanted to give myself plenty of time. My car had other plans. As can be seen from the previous issue of V.V. my car broke down. This forced me to have a good time at Zion on Tuesday then drive down early Wednesday morning.

I needed to be at the bottom of the canyon by 5:00 P.M. for dinner. The drive was slated to take five and a half hours and the hike down, four to six hours. Needless to say I left early and in a bit of a rush. I need not have worried. Arizona, it turns out, aside from being a desert, is one of those rare and wonderful states that don't use daylight savings time. As such I had an hour extra when I showed up.

The extra hour was quite nice, which you may know if you have ever tried to find parking at the grand canyon at 10:00 am on a Wednesday morning. I would hate to try a Saturday in the summer. Anyway they have a nice slow set of "free" buses (it costs $25 to get into the park). By noon I was on my way down.

The trail just falls into the canyon. The path I took in is about 7.5 miles long. It descends 4600 ft. I really should not have worried about getting to dinner on time. As some of you may know, I am tall. What this means in practical hiking-down-a-canyon terms is that I can use the ties across the path as steps. They are about three feet apart and are placed to keep the path from washing out. Assuming it ever rains. It takes most folks two or three steps per tie. That means I can go at a leisurely pace that is about twice as fast as your average bear. I arrived at Phantom ranch at about 2:30.

With all that extra time before dinner I was able to hike around the canyon floor. Take a nap and eat a snack. The bottom of the canyon is 20 - 30 degrees hotter than the rim. It was about 100 degrees. It was thus a good thing that I packed shorts. It was not, however, a good thing that I packed a long sleeve shirt and a sweat shirt. Completely unnecessary, both of them.

I hear that if you ever visit Phantom Ranch you should order the stew. I wouldn't know, I ordered the steak. It was big and fairly rare. I normally like my steak fully dead and thoroughly brown. When civilization has to be packed in each day by mule, you don't complain about the food and you enjoy it. It really was good. The meal was huge and I needed every calorie for the following day.

Dinner was also delightful for the company. I ate with a Danish couple who envied our not-yet-socialist government and two women from New York who envied Denmark's socialist government. Myself, I am perfectly content to pay less than 50% in taxes.

Hiking back up is supposed to take twice as long as coming down. It didn't but I can see why it should. My legs will be weeks in the healing. I took a longer path out. 11 miles long, 4600 ft up and somewhere between 100 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature depends on altitude and where along the path you are.

Most folk left the ranch at 4-5 am. I know because they thought everyone in camp should be awake and made sure that we were. I left at 6:30. Now I know why they left so early. It gets hot. Going up is not bad until you get there.

Once back on the rim.... 4.5 hours later.. I realized I could no longer utilize my calves, my legs were caked a solid 1/8 in thick with the finest red dust you ever did see, and eating french fries was the right thing to do; to replace my lost sodium and depleted energy reserves.

After climbing out and cleaning up I headed to this little place in western Arizona. That's right. The London bridge. It's on lake Havasu. It was a mere 104 degrees there. I took a drink and it came right back out of my forehead. Oh but it's dry heat. I think that means that it is still hot. The bridge was nice though. The little tourist trap of a city around it was kind of hilarious. Texicali with a nice English flavor.





Sam's Summary

• I stepped into the grand canyon.
  
• It was quite a drop
• The heat at the bottom is amazing.
• The deer are spooky friendly
• I ate a rare steak
• I spoke with a Danish
• He was a doctor
• I hiked back up
• It was not a race, but well you know me, I made it into one.
• I passed all the 4 o'clock hikers
• I ate at Wendy's
  
• I saw the London bridge
• I camped in the frying Mojave desert.
• I am at my sister's place in Vista California.
  

Everything is going smoothly

Everything is going smoothly. It's just not going according to plan. I intended to do a lot of biking in the Fort Collins area. That was before I caught the plague. The plague consists of running a very slight temperature, a mildly scratchy throat, a light cough, and a general feeling of blahness.

I am still going to do some biking. I will be leaving in a half hour or so to pit myself against Rist Canyon Road.

The big thing that I did not plan is a flight back to Michigan on the 13th of May. I will be back home for a week. No, it's not because of a funeral or even a court date. Really it is more an effort to avoid a court date. What I have known for two whole days before you is that I am driving around the country on an expired drivers license. It took a highly trained security guard at Intel to discover that.

Thankfully Michigan gives out of state residents a six month extension in order to give them time to get home. Unfortunately, six months expired three days ago.

One would think that the State would have sent me a letter letting me know it was time to renew back in October. Well, they did. Trouble is the envelope looks exactly like the "Renew your license plate on your car" letter. I distinctly remember wondering why they sent two of them within a week of each other. Like a good absent minded professor with a touch of ADD, I was quite proud of myself for going into the secretary of state, in person and on time, to renew my plate. Mission accomplished and expelled from my memory.

So the car is good to go, but I am not. Should I get pulled over, they can let my car go on without me. I want to avoid this as my car really has no ambition and would probably just sit around without me there to push it's buttons. So I am going to drive somewhat carefully to San Diego so my sister can watch my vehicle whilst I fly home to take care of this little issue.

I know it sounds a bit extreme, but it's better than the rash a stickler like me would get sweating every second I am out on the road. In all truth it will be good to spend a week at home. I need my spine adjusted (Hi dad), I could use another round of prolotherapy treatments for my wrist (Hi again dad), and I really should catch one of Tim's baseball games, baby sit Ava (My niece), and give a certain Brit a big pat on the back for surviving both high school and the family household.

I do have reservations to stay at Phantom ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon next week. I am thus, not exactly rushing off. I have been a bit illegal for six months, whats another week? I will be quite happy to not have that to worry about though. I figure with the (hopefully free) medical treaments and weeks worth of home cooked meals (I miss you mom) this unplanned bit of smoothness will pay for it's self.

Now to find a way to board an airplane without a valid photo ID...

Sam's Summary

• Sam already knows all this
• However, there is some delightful word play here that was not in the phone converstation
• He would have to read the whole thing anyway to appreciate it
• I actually have already taken care of the ID for the plane problem
• I am pretty good at taking care of problems when I know what they are
• As this is my most embaressing post I am sure all of you will find it the most entertaining
• Meanies!