August 2009 - Grand Canyon

For my stay in California in August 2009 Laine's mom had promised something very special: a three-day trip to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas! Past midnigt on August 16th we set off, Laine, her mom, her sister Mina, their puppy Loki and me.
The drive is scheduled to take about eight hours through the mountains north of Los Angeles and the desert. On our way we stopped in Needles, on the border between California and Arizona to gas up, and twice more on the Route 66, in Seligman and Williams, Arizona.

Seligman, Arizona

This is exacly how one imagines a town along the Route 66: few houses, at least one of them an old gas station with a huge mast on top of which a sign reads "Route 66". Right next to it a real stereotypical American Diner with a few Harleys parked in front of it. Passing the center of this ghost town a straight strip of tarmac cuts the desert, disappearing behind the horizon in both directions.
Seligman has all that and one more special sight: a row of houses that look like a real western town from the movies. We spent about 20 minutes here before we set off again, eastbound on the Interstate highway.

Williams, Arizona

Another town along Route 66 is Williams. At the same time it is the self-announced "Gateway to the Grand Canyon". Although the Canyon is more than one hour drive north, the only road leading there origins in Williams, a branch of the Interstate and Route 66. Still more than one hour to drive and yet we were already close. This desert is so big that a European has to abandon all his measures of size.
Because of the advantageous location, Williams has become a kind of Grand Canyon visitor center. Since all visitors enter through Williams, there is an info house where you can already supply yourself with brochures and maps. The same building also functions as a little Route 66 museum showing a few exhibits like the last working traffic light on the Route 66. Williams was the last town to be passed by the Interstate and hence this was the last place where the Route 66 was the only East-West connection for traffic.

Close to the museum is a train station from where a historical steam engine pulls historical cars down the tracks leading to the Grand Canyon, of course rather for tourists than for actual transportation. According to American mentality, most still choose the car to get to the Canyon though.
We had breakfast at a fastfood place in town, the morning air was still fresh enough to allow sitting outside.

Grand Canyon Village

Finally, we arrived at the world famous Grand Canyon. But where is it, I asked myself. So far, I hadn't even caught sight of a hint that one of the world's largest natural wonders was close. If it hadn't been for my tummy starting to hurt a little I would have even forgotten that we were at more than 2,000 meters above sea level, higher than most peaks of the Alps. The wide plain does not exactly make it evident.

Obama was in town, maybe that was the reason for the masses of cars and all the police. Maybe it was only because so many people come to see the Canyon every day, having only been there once I cannot tell.
We came through Grand Canyon village, rather an accumulation of souvenir stores and vacation cottages than an actual village. I doubt that anyone lives there permanently.

We parked on the side of the street, in a long row of cars and next to a few desert bushes. A path lead away from the other side of the street towards an info center. Despite current weather information this place offered insight in geology and geography of the place. By the way, so far I could only rely on the promises and indicators, I had still not seen any evidence of the Canyon's existence at all. After a short toilet-stop we walked back in the direction we had come from, followed a path through the shrubs and suddenly the most amazing panorama opened up before my eyes.

I can't find words to describe this view. That is because I could not even fully realize what my eyes saw. It was almost as if my brain refused to believe that this was real, that right here, bigger than my field of vision, the largest and most beautiful gaping hole I had ever seen was opening up. The mere presence and size of this wonderful canyon, formed over millions of years by the forces of nature, makes the individual shrink to meaninglessness. Sure, I had seen pictures, I had read figures and comparisons. I had believed to know what was expecting me. But when I was there, eye in eye with a spark of eternity and creation, I was proven wrong. The human mind, at least mine, is not capable of fully realizing this. This was bigger than anything anyone could ever make, bigger than anything the human can fully understand.

Strange enough, my acrophobia did not show at all. Usually I begin to feel sick if I only stand on a chair, but now I was standing at the edge of an abyss, hundreds of meters of vertically dropping rock, and all I felt was awe and amazement. We sat on a rock that already had a crack separating it from the solid rock and it felt okay for me.

We stayed a few hours, visited another information point, this one built directly at the edge of the rock. We went to the market place of the village to look inside a huge souvenir store. And eventually we sat off back to the west, heading towards Las Vegas.