Canyon Chills

This has been a blah travel day after a time of glory yesterday. Today: We left Tusayon, AZ just outside Grand Canyon to see Monument Valley and The Four Corners. Kevin felt badly from the time we left – don’t know if he has a stomach bug or what, but it is worse than the usual tummy yucks. We ate lunch at a Navajo restaurant and he felt even crummier after that. The boys were complaining of fatigue, so we just drove through the valley without taking the 2 hr. dirt road route to see more or the 4WD Navajo-guided tour I’d thought sounded wonderful (although it turned out to be $65 each for 1.5 hrs., so I suppose we wouldn’t have done that in any case.) Mostly, I drove in a big square around the valley, listening to the end of How the West was Won, by Louis L’Amour, and oohing and ahhing to myself as the other three slept. We made a brief stop at the Four Corners site – stupid! – for an obligatory picture and got back into the air conditioning as quickly as we could. I was dreaming of a McDonald’s caramel frappe for the last fifty miles – that’s the sort of day it was. That’s ok – that’s life in a family of different people with different needs, right?.
But, yesterday: We decided to go to Grand Canyon in the morning and early afternoon, return to the hotel for some R&R, and head back to the park to see the sunset. After a frozen pizza dinner disguised as something worth $20, we found our way to what we’d been told was the best viewpoint on the south rim from which to watch the sun go down. Samuel had a blast setting up his tripod and snapping various shots. I found a perch on a rock wall and just soaked up the whole experience. It may have been my favorite moment of the trip. The air was perfectly comfortable – the heat gone out of the day but no chill yet arrived to replace it – the ravens soared out over the canyon and the colors softened and melded and softened some more and darkness descended little by little – a fast sunset but a long gloaming.
Before it got too dark to see, we walked a little way down one of the paths that lead to the bottom and arranged ourselves to watch the stars come out. I was situated so that on one side of me was the emptiness of the canyon with the north rim far away and on the other was the south canyon wall rising high up. It gave me a bit more than a half-circle of sky to watch. While there was still a glow on the horizon I kept thinking that it was exactly like being in a planetarium – that north rim was so even it appeared artificial. So many stars, and we really didn’t even stay until it was absolutely dark. Jonathan said he doesn’t think he has ever seen so many. We sang a verse of Now the Day is Over and Can You Count the Stars of Evening and I sang Day is Done. Quietly, just quietly, so as not to disturb the peace, you see. I wanted to ask somebody to pray, but I knew I couldn’t speak without weeping. It was that kind of time for me, the kind that comes only rarely in a lifetime.
I don’t think it was that kind of time at all for the other three, though. Samuel was clicking away with the camera, experimenting with F-starts or stops or whatever they are and exclaiming over his successes and fussing over his failures, and Kevin and Jonathan were using the binoculars in the fading light to find the flashlights of hikers stumbling out the final leg of not-recommended-in-one-day hikes to the bottom and back. After shushing a time or two, I finally asked if everyone could just be quiet for five minutes – “time it if you want – but give me five minutes of silence to experience this.” It was too dark for me to see if there was any eye-rolling, but they immediately got quiet and gave me that gift. And I thanked them for it, because it was a time I badly wanted.
Which just goes to show you that what is a spiritual experience for one person is a photo op for another is a “man thing” for still others (still don’t understand why watching struggling hikers is manly, but there you go.)
And now, here at our hotel on the outskirts of the little town of Cortez, CO, while I am sitting on our balcony watching the light fade from the buttes in the distance, no doubt one son is uploading the day’s photos, the other is taking advantage of cable TV to watch a show about people who bid on the contents of abandoned storage units, and The Husband is trying to feel better. That’s ok – that’s life in a family of different people with different needs, right?
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