My sister and I took a road trip over the Labor Day weekend. The Grand Canyon of Arizone was our first destination. I have to say, the pictures that many of us have seen simply don’t do it justice. There are canyons within canyons within canyons. Deep and never-ending. In the canyon I saw more variations on the colors of brown, red and yellow than I have ever seen in one place. When you find a spot away from other tourists, all you can hear is the breeze wafting through the canyon and the juniper trees around us, and the occasional caw of a raven or chitter of a squirrel. The quiet was intoxicating.
We saw one raven who had landed on a rocky cropping, and just stood in one place for long minutes with his wings spread in all their full glory. We weren’t sure if he was showing off for us (ha!) or for a female we couldn’t spot. But one thing our picture didn’t catch, is that like the canyon, he was almost the largest bird we had ever seen.
We stayed at The Grand Hotel in Tusayan that first night. It is a small tourist-oriented town just 1 or 2 miles south of the Grand Canyon entrance. Our intention was to visit the South Rim of the Canyon, as we were coming from Albuquerque and this seemed the easiest along our route. Dinner at the hotel restaurant was very good. The BBQ ribs almost melted in your mouth and the service was good. Would have liked a small dinner salad with it, though. The breakfast menu seemed a bit pricy to us, so we caught breakfast elsewhere the next morning.
We spent about 6 hours driving and hiking along the South Rim of the Canyon, and we still didn’t get to see everything. Next time, and we promised we’d do it again, we plan to stay several days in the area as there is just so much to see besides the grandeur of the canyon itself.
As we left the Grand Canyon and continued our travels north and then west, we passed Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon Dam. We didn’t stop, however, as we just didn’t have the time. Again, a trip for another time. But I understand you can rent houseboats on Lake Powell and that sounded very interesting to us – big enough for all our family to join us.
The next “tourist attraction” we traveled through was the Zion National Park. Again, publicity photos in books and magazines simply don’t do it justice. From one bend in the road to another, around one curve or rise in the road to the next, there was a totally new and powerful view of nature in all her glory. There are a number of small towns pocketed in the canyon of this park. Springdale, Rockville, Virgin (honest). It was dusk as we passed through Springdale, but there was something about this small and very touristy looking town that caught both our attention – so of course I slowed down. The streets were pristine, and the green of lawns and small parks was so captivating after driving through some very rocky terrain. There appeared to be a good deal of water in this canyon, and I could smell the moisture in the air. And it smelled of pine, juniper, and air fresher than I’ve smelled in a very long time. All types of people were out walking the sidewalks of the main part of town – going from restaurants, bookstores, tourist shops, hotels, bed & breakfasts, and more. You could almost tell which ones were local residents and which were tourists – but they all melded together in a gentle sort of way.
But we were still hours from Salt Lake City, and trying to make it there for the night. So we continued on. We didn’t succeed. By 11:00 p.m. we were both tired of being in the car and so we stopped in a small town about two hours south of Salt Lake City and spent the night. We reached our final destination of Twin Falls, Idaho (where our family lives, including our parents), around 2 p.m. the final day of our trip together. I had about 4 hours to visit with my parents and then caught my flight home to Albuquerque.
It was a great trip, but a little exhausting. And here’s why. Three hours west of Albuquerque (where our road trip began) the air conditioner of the car quit working. We debated stopping, turning back, or just using the back windows for air circulation. We opted to use the back windows. We were both worried that if we stopped, some dubious service station would charge us a lot more to fix than necessary. A new air conditioner had been installed just 2 years ago, so I knew it couldn’t be that. Well, in Twin Falls, it was discovered that all it needed was a new cabin filter. But here’s the rub. I had taken the car in for servicing before the trip and had specifically asked that this filter be checked. Obviously, it hadn’t. Needless to say they got a very angry call from a very aggravated menopausal woman when I got home!
But, overall, this road trip with my sister was one of the best trips I have ever taken. We talked, gossiped, laughed, ooh’d and aah’d the entire way. We never seemed to lack for something to talk about or something new to catch our attention. GREAT fun!
The Raven Dance
