Grand Canyon and Flagstaff

We woke up the next morning to rain and fog in Williams, AZ.   While the kids and Twiggy went to breakfast, I stopped by the rack of brochures in the lobby to see if we could get a tour at the last minute.  The last time we were at the Grand Canyon, we had cruised up and down the Rim Road, stopping at various lookout points without really knowing what we were doing.  Despite the guidebooks, we decided this time to take a half day tour, if possible, and then spend the afternoon by ourselves.  

Luckily, we booked a tour that departed from Tusayan, about an hour north of Williams.  So we quickly left the hotel and headed due north where we met our tour operator in the parking lot of the McDonalds.  Our family comprised the entire tour entourage.  We had an 4WD truck with an open back of stadium seats with plastic windows that could be rolled down to protect passengers from  the rain and Indian blankets for each passenger.  It was a perfect setup, especially with just us as the passengers since we did not have to worry about offending anyone with our intra-family banter and repartee.

The Grand Canyon shrouded in fog

How's the view?  Its so foggy their gizmo doesn't even work.

Now seven years ago, when we were here, the skies were very hazy with smoke from brush fires north of the area.  You could see the canyon, but it was hard to clear view of the distance and details were hard to make out.  This time, there was thick fog and rain.  Twiggy and I just had to laugh.  How was it that we would visit America's premier destination of grand vistas twice in seven years and not be able to really see it.  We toured some of the Kaibab National Forest and an old copper mine which supported a town into the 1950's and stopped to learn about the flora and fauna at various points before approaching the rim of the canyon.  When we eventually did get to the rim, the whole canyon was fogged in.  You couldn't see 100 yards and we had to laugh.  

We continued on the tour getting only a few glimpses into the canyon and eventually left the rim and made our way back outside the park and to Tusayan.  On the tour we did did see some animals including a California condor and a slew of mule deer.  When we came across a ranger with an exhibit that explained the condors and a tape measure, it became apparent that when you are looking down into the canyon it is really hard to keep your perspective.  The bird that looked like a small seagull was a bird with a nine foot wingspan. 

As the fog was lifting

The tour operator dropped us back at our car in the McDonalds parking lot and we headed back into the park, stopping at various points of interest and lookout points as we made our way east along the rim road and the exit toward Flagstaff.

Eventually, the fog alternatively lifted and dropped amid the rain that kept coming and going and we did get views of the sweeping vistas.   And quite a view it was.  There were less crowds given the time of year and the fact that most West Coast schools had been in session for a few weeks at this point.   The rain and the fog kept the weather temperate and it was actually quite enjoyable.  

Again I experienced a very strong sense of vertigo which was exacerbated by the fear of our somewhat random third child overestimating her capabilities.  This was the case at Hoover Dam as well as some of the overlooks in Yellowstone, but it was particularly acute at the Grand Canyon.  Each year numerous people fall off the canyon rim hundreds of feet to their deaths.  According to the tour guide the high month was when 38 people fell off the side into the canyon.  And its not like you fall a few feet before getting stuck in some brush.  You fall, bounce a few times, fall again and eventually find some resting place hundreds of feet below.  And there are thousands of people all trying to get their picture taken all along the edge..."Just one more step back, Honey.  I can't quite focus".   If a newlywed wife can do this, I was imagining what my wife was capable of after over 15 years of marriage, the last 30 days of which was in a minivan.  Maybe that also contributed to my sense of uneasiness and my reluctance to get too close to the edge.

In the picture below check out the guy on the left.  I can't tell whether he is getting ready to push her off or whether he is trying to keep her from falling over the edge.  I don't have my physics down cold, but my guess is that if she goes, he goes with her.  There is "literally",  as Joe Biden would say, nothing to hold onto.

Check out the guy on the left...

The tour guide had mentioned a few Trading Posts at which to stop on the Indian Reservation after we left the park and on the way to Flagstaff.  We stopped at a few in particular and bought some inexpensive Indian jewelry for the kids.  The people were very friendly at these places and often recommended proprietors a few booths down.  I thought to myself either they are all related or simply don't have a finely honed business instinct.  

Last time we were in Flagstaff, Twiggy and I had what we remember to be the best Mexican food in the world.  Neither of us remembered the name of the restaurant, but we both remembered what it looked like.  So as we finished our drive down the hill, we scouted about on Yelp trying to match their listings with what we remember the restaurant to look like.  We did find it, and eagerly clamored in for our anticipated meal.  The first bite was about the biggest letdown we could have had and it did not get any better.  It wasn't the ambiance, it was just that the food was about as disappointing as could be after carrying around a memory for 6 years.  Perhaps we had built it up too much in our minds, but perhaps it was because the food was just mediocre at best.