August 17, 2005

I woke up very early Tuesday morning. I was going to drive to the Grand Canyon.

I've been sleeping on my friends' sofa since I returned. I rolled off of it, shucking the blanket and pulling on my pants. It was already hot outside, and the ceiling fan lazily stirred the living room air. I didn't really need much, so I grabbed a shirt, my camera, a pillow and a few blankets and put them in the back of my car. My friend, Shannon, was already awake and called me to make sure I was up, too. I stopped by the Gold Bar, a coffee shop, then drove over to his house. He had all his things: a sleeping bag, pillows, food in an ice chest, a propane stove, water, a book and some cooking utensils loaded up in a wheelbarrow. We packed up and took off.

It takes a long time to drive to the Grand Canyon. 7 hours by car.



Phoenix is in the desert. In the morning it is very hot.

We took the city freeways out to the main interstate, I-17, and drove north. Southern Arizona is a low, dry desert with lots of sharp plants and cactai. As you go north, the elevation goes up, and north of Phoenix are lots of rolling mountains and dry, dusty plains. Past Black Canyon City the highway climbs a thousand feet, a stretch that locals call, "The Hill." Above that, the scenery changes. The tall saguaro (sa-war-oh) cactai are gone, replaced with scrub brush and short cactai. The rolling hills are covered with dried, brown grasses that appear with the first spring rains and vanish with the first summer wildfires.

Phoenix weather is very hot in the summer and very nice in the winter.

North of Phoenix is a city called Flagstaff. Flagstaff is in the mountains.

Climbing in elevation north, the high desert prairie changes to scrub oak and juniper. North of that, the hills are covered in pine trees and oak. Flagstaff is a liberal, hippie holdout. The city has a laid-back feeling to it; people are friendly, the air is much cooler than the rest of the state, and the scenery is beautiful. The mountain that Flagstaff is next to is called the San Francisco Peaks that raise up to over 11,000 feet. It's where everyone in the state goes to ski during the short winter season.

Flagstaff is my favorite city in Arizona. In Flagstaff is my favorite coffee.

The Native Americans who live north of Flagstaff are called "Navajo" (Na-va-ho).

The reservation they live on is barren. Hard, red earth and rock outcroppings with occasional wind-battered scrappy plants make it feel like you're driving across Mars. The highway, too, narrows because the government money that goes towards roads and highways doesn't get distributed to the BIA (Buearau of Indian Affairs) in an even-handed sort of way. It's slow going when you're stuck behind a winnebago. The highway intersects 89 to 89A, instead of going north into Utah, we turn west above the Grand Canyon and across to the North Rim.

The Navajo have lived in Arizona for a very long time.

The North Rim of the Grand Canyon has cool weather and many trees.

We stopped at the tourist center in Jacob Lake to check our maps. The dirt roads crossing around through the forest can be confusing. We figured out where we were going and headed south, towards the Canyon.

There are only old roads in the forest.

We drove to the Grand Canyon.

It was a long drive on the dirt roads. I amused myself by playing with the stick-shift option on my "sport" model rental. Coasting halfway up a hill and then gunning it in second to the top was a lot more fun than the tedium of highway driving. The thickets of aspen and pine shaded the road, through the trees we saw an elk and a few deer. Aspen is one of my favorite trees, and in Korea ginko trees remind me a lot of them. Aspen have white bark and turn golden in the fall.

The Grand Canyon is very big. You can see very far.

We made a fire and ate dinner.

On the edge of Marble Canyon, after dinner we sat next to the fire and talked for a long time; it had been a long time since I'd seen him and it was really nice to spend some time catching up. Which is mostly what I've been doing since I got back to Arizona.

We slept in tents and had breakfast early in the morning.

In the morning we went to a place where you look at the Grand Canyon.

Saddle Mountain is a fin that goes out into canyon, looking out just northeast of the same view you get from the North Rim Lodge lookout point, except there aren't any tourists and you can't quite see the San Francisco Peaks, nearly 200 miles south, because there's another fin in the way. We parked, hiked out on a narrow path, and out to the edge of the fin which dropped 300 degrees around us; only our path bridging us back to terra firma. We drove back to Jacob Lake after snapping a few pictures and enjoying the view. In the cafe, rife with tourists even in the early morning, we sat with mugs of coffee next to a couple of Germans who'd just hiked South Rim to North. The young guy serving them asked, "Where're y'all from?" In a thick accent a girl replied, "Ve ar fromh Amelika, cahn't you dell?" Made me smile.

The view was beautiful.

After breakfast, we went back to Phoenix, my hometown. It is a long way. Driving in a car takes 7 hours.

The trip back was uneventful. Shannon slept in fits for the first half. We caught NPR intermittently. Listened to the Stones and watched the temperature climb as we dropped from 10,000 feet down to 3,000. The evening rush hour along the freeways in Phoenix took ages to weave through.

There were many cars in the evening. It took a long time to go home.

It was a nice trip.