canyonlandia

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Jacob Lake, Vermillion Cliffs and Glen Canyon Recreation Area.  Utah.  Arizona.  Nevada.  The Colorado River cuts a wide swath through many states.   We watch her progress past the Vermillion Cliffs, Cliff Dweller, Navajo Bridge, Lees Ferry, Glen Canyon Dam, and Page.  Stupendous.  White men may have subdivided these vast canyon lands into hundreds of national, state, and county parks, monuments, historic sites, and preserves.  But there is no denying the superiority of the river that carved so much stone, rearranging the landscape with such breath-taking views.  The drive from Jacob Lake to Page on US 89 is a trip worth taking.

north rim

chilly view of Bright Angel Point

North Rim.  Grand Canyon. It’s over two hundred miles from its sister lodge on the South Rim and a thousand feet higher in altitude.  But the biggest difference is the wind and weather.  There was snow here this morning.  Visitors huddle in the North Rim Lodge’s great room, coats zippered, stocking caps pulled down, mittens on.  Brrr.  The high today reached 51 degrees with strong winds. It’s a cold, cold view.  Hot chocolate is selling briskly.

tunneling through

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The Tunnel to the Grand Canyon.  Zion National Park.  We rise early to quit the park, paying the park fee to drive under millions of pounds of rock in the mile-long tunnel forged by the civil conservation corps back in the 1930′s.  The ride through the rock is stunning.  But even more impressive is the strange land of windblown cliffs we find on the other side.  We have climbed back up into the high desert spotted with prickly pear and strange blooms.  We find a place to park and scrabble over the steppes, finding ephemeral pools and tadpole nurseries tucked away from the wind and prying eyes.

new favorite

across the Virgin River

Zion National Park.  The men who named it sanctuary were on to something here.  Rocks, trees, water, frogs, history, and shade.  This place has everything we need.   The lovely canyon hideaway makes it into our family’s pick of top five parks.

got milk?

unscheduled stop

Zion National Park, UT.  This morning before the boys sit down to  breakfast, I dash out to buy a gallon of milk.  We are planning a hike along the riverside and a bike ride later this afternoon.  But minutes later our plans have changed.  Somehow in the quarter-mile drive from our campground to the grocery store I forgot that there were three bikes mounted atop the car.  By the time I remember I have already passed the point of no return into the underground parking garage where a low overhead caution guard swings crazily.  Oops.

bits and pieces

It’s been two hours now, and yet I have no milk.  Still David, Nathan, and I are happy campers.  Moments after first impact I confess my moving violation to the grocer and call to collect my husband and chief engineering troubleshooter.  Our son opts to stay behind in the world of sleepy  hairdos for a Harry Potter marathon tucked safe inside our camper.

off the rack

Back at the crash scene we quickly learn of a nearby bike shop.  Fortuitously, Freddy’s fully equipped rental, sales, and repair business sits across the street from the corner market.  We begin our sorry parade down the block, walking two bicycles with newly squared wheels.  Later we return for the fallen Frankenstein bicycle rack that used to sit firmly atop the family automobile.  Now we tuck the metal pretzel into the back of the car and ferry it across the way with the hatch up.

new trainee with Bill

After some thoughtful consultation and a quick tally of repair estimates with Mr. Zion Cycles we have a plan, and I drive back to check on my young reader.  Nathan is as happy as can be, so I gather up my camera and computer and head back to the bicycle day spa.  I just don’t want to miss out on anything.  I return with a hard-boiled egg for David’s breakfast and search around the shop for him.  Suddenly I spy him behind the counter wielding a wicked looking steel mallet.  He’s got one of the car’s rack mounting clips tucked into a vise and he is working on making it true again.  You gotta love him and the no-nonsense proprietor who is able to intuit that the shortest distance between two points is sometimes nonlinear.  And so he gives my husband a hammer and puts him to work fixing his own problem.

worth the ride

It is surely no accident that so many turn-of-the-century genius inventors ran bike shops.  These folks have always known that improvisation, a little road grease, and a love of tinkering can propel you just about anywhere you want to go.  We have taken another unexpected detour, but all is not lost.  This is a truly lovely place to be stranded.  I joke that the Zion bike shop could charge urban visitors to take a turn at pretending for the day that they are weekend bike surgeons.  It’s a sort of clever twist on the City Slicker’s movie where tourists rustle up road bikes instead of long horns.  We love Zion Cycles.  I am even thinking about buying one of their custom riding shirts.  You just can’t plan for days like this.  And maybe after a little while we’ll even get that gallon of milk.

zion

into the breach

canyon tree frog

cliff hangers

small island

at water’s edge

diving in

Zion National Park, Utah.  We hike the free-flowing Narrows walled in between millions of years of shining sandstone.  Along our way we pass dozens of international sojourners, smiling sheepishly as they hike up their shorts and take a soaking in the chilly waters.  The water temperature may be fifty-eight degrees, but it is a lovely day for bathing in the Virgin River.

treasure island

Treasure Island Resort.  Las Vegas Boulevard.  Lured by the siren song of over-the-top advertisers, we venture out at sunset to see the historic pirate ship battle re-enacted nightly by singing and dancing buccaneers at the Treasure Island resort.  The expectant crowd jostles for position minutes before the spectacle begins.  Nathan snags a spot up front in the splash area where signs notify the unsuspecting that they will get wet.  And so it begins.  Half an hour of wiggling sirens in bikini’s calling to unsuspecting sailors who sink their ship, but have a good time doing it.  There are disco lights, powder charges, fireworks, underwater pyrotechnics, rope swinging pirates, suggestive lyrics, and more.  It’s not exactly good clean fun, but my son does get wet.  It’s quite the booty call.

Afterwards my jaded ten-year old turns to me to file his review of the swashbuckler follies,  “C’mon, mom.  A pirate ship full of women wearing bikinis.  What are the odds?”  Then my little bookmaker gives me a cheeky grin and offers, “They’re not really pirates.  They are more like a bunch of biki-neers.  What were those pirate thinking to go after them?”

Out of the mouth of babes.  That’s my boy.  No need to interpret this particular life lesson for my young scallywag.  I think he’s got it.

smile, rip, strip

going for broke

cashing in our chips

later at the Luxor

Diamond Dental and Shadow Mountain Dental.  Las Vegas. Nathan’s orthodontic spacer broke two days ago at the farthest reach of the Grand Canyon’s South Rim near Hermit’s Rest.  We’ve managed to patch things up temporarily with some sugar-free chewing gum, but now we have pressing business in the city of stars, Las Vegas.  No showgirls for us, I’m afraid.  Just some winsome dental hygienist if we are lucky.  Over the past 300 miles we’ve enjoyed a toothsome scavenger hunt with our home office trying to triangulate the location of a willing orthodontist a way out west.

Thanks to Connie, the office manager back in Boone, North Carolina  for playing  the role of able dispatcher.  We have worn out our cell phone working with her to track down the Kingman fellow who takes Mondays off and a slew of other cosmetic dentists in the land of skin deep physical beauty.  We pay an exploratory call to the good Doctor Webster with Diamond Dental before deciding to cash in our chips and follow his prudent advice.  It appears our son’s lower spacers will need to be removed two months early.

This is the face of progressive dentistry.  14,000 miles.  Three lost baby teeth.  A six-month check up in Vancouver, Washington.  A band tightening in San Francisco, California.  And an appliance readjustment outside of Las Vegas, Nevada.  My son picks up precious metal in the Gold Rush town and sheds it in the Glittering Gulch.  Seems reasonable to me.

After we settle our dental dilemma we head to the Las Vegas Strip to ride the monorail through the Luxor, Excalibur, and Mandalay Resorts.  We are cheap tourists of the worst sort, happy just to ogle the strange architecture and hold our noses as we are shunted through the noisy pachenko parlors scented with stale cigarettes poorly masked by artificial clove perfume.  The garish blinking ding donging slot machine salons hold no appeal, I’m afraid.  As we pass from the tram to the grand hotel entrances the friendly barkers lining the aisles give us wide berth, sensing we will not help them to make their quotas for the hour.  Rubes passing.  Our good times spin on a different set of fortune’s wheels.  Sorry, it’s just the way we roll.

across the water

lights

camera

water

Las Vegas, Nevada. Lights.  Cameras.  Water.  And lots of it.  The dancing fountains at the Bellagio greet us at sunset as we catch our first glimpse of the glittering gulch.  It seems we have travelled from pole to pole in the span of a day.  On one end, an earthly cavity of natural conservation and beauty.  On the other, a towering jungle of human consumption and unnatural spectacle.  We stare across the dancing jet spray towards the Champs Elysees and La Tour Eifel.  We have certainly frog jumped the pond to get here.

hot dam

beside

on top

inside

Hoover Dam.  We take the Dam tour.  The 1930’s engineering wonder may now settle at the bottom of a world-wide list of big river plugs, coming in twenty-fourth on the Guinness charts, but it is still Dam big.  And Dam impressive.  But mostly it is just Dam hot.  It is 117 degrees in the shade, and all we can think about is hydration.  We stop in the snack bar after the tour for a tall glass of water and a  scoop of ice cream, sharing a table with a beet-faced gentleman from Denmark.  He is  crossing the southern US on a motorcycle in fourteen days during a massive heat wave.  Honestly, what possesses some people to undertake such a foolhardy journey?  It’s dam strange.  Oh yeah.  Never mind.  Dam, dam, and dam.  We happily suspend the family rule on unnecessary cursing for the afternoon, swearing like a bunch of land locked sailors and their salty parrot suffering from Tourette’s syndrome.  Hot dam.