Fabric of America: A Visit to the Grand Canyon

After driving over the potholes and through the dust clouds on Route 66, we finally reached the northern Arizonan city of Flagstaff.

Despite countless road trips as a kid, I’d never seen the Grand Canyon before. And while a lot of people who’ve never been there don’t really talk about it like it’s the end-all, be-all of natural sights to be seen, anyone who has been there will tell you that you must go. Immediately.

I never really thought of it as one of those “1000 Things to Do Before You Die,” but we were on our ultimate “Fabric of America” road trip, and we figured we should probably stop by this Natural Wonder of the World.

I’ve seen big canyons. When I was a kid, we went to Palo Duro canyon in northern Texas. Just a couple of years ago, we went to Tara Canyon in Montenegro. These big, bad slits in the Earth made me feel like I’ve had my share of big canyons.

I guess I was wrong.

The Grand Canyon, at its most minimalist, is a canyon that you should see on your family road trip because everyone apparently goes to the Grand Canyon. (Except those who don’t.) At its most maximalist, it’s a sprawling wonderland of dips and dives, an endless horizon of rock and mud and water and mountains and valleys and canyons within canyons. (And tourists.)

Ang has been here before, several years back when she was road-tripping with a friend. Back then, she says they just drove right to it and were all like, “Wow, big canyon. Let’s check it out.” [Picture, picture, picture.]

Nowadays, it’s a fortress that you have to pay $20 or something to enter, which is totally fine as long as that money is going to the park and not to national “defense” or some congressman’s Bridge to Nowhere.

Of course, the annoying thing about a National Park/Monument is that, somewhere along the way, someone figured out that millions of people visit these things every year and that there’s good reason to stick a bunch of shops and other money-sucking “enhancements” in every corner of every parking lot. Because hey, more money.

You gotta do what you gotta do, but I’m not too keen on going to visit a natural wonder and being asked to stay in a lodge or spend money in 4,623 shops or eat at some restaurant or pay $5 for a Coke because, hey, it’s all in the Spirit of ‘Murica!

Ang and I are vagabonds in our mid-30s who didn’t invest in a ~~Lamborghini~~ child, so we have a few extra bucks to spend now and then. I can only imagine what sort of eighteenth mortgage it takes these days for a family of four to visit a place like this and not leave with soul-crushing debt and continuously mounting credit card bills.

Fortunately, the nearby city of Flagstaff offers plenty of hotel options for much less than $100/night. I think we paid less than $60 for a suite, which is a lot better than the completely brutal prices in the monument/tourist town of Rapid City, South Dakota, where you’re extremely lucky to escape the hotel cartel there for under $200 a pop.

Anyway, we rolled through the park gates and dutifully followed our provided map to actually get to the edge of the canyon. Along the way, we saw this. As is the trend on this journey, we loved seeing the sign and hated not actually seeing a real-life version of what’s on the sign. Le sigh.

It was pretty hazy on this particular day, which didn’t give us the clearest photos on our real camera, but did make for a sort of bluish, Mars-landscape kind of aura.

It truly is no joke at all. This thing is massive. Maaaassive. I don’t really have much more to say, so here are some more pictures.

Except this, because this is the wildlife we most-often encountered. :) The fedora hipster stalks its prey…

Okay, sorry…back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Seriously though, visit the Grand Canyon. It doesn’t need to be on your bucket list (why do you have a bucket list?), but if you find yourself within a few hundred miles of this beast, you should hop on over and see what all the fuss is about. It’s beyond impressive.