Chapter 10.
Back to Civilization
Dinner at a Cafeteria
"What do you want for supper, I have things at the campsite," Viann often used this tack to get credit for frugality.
"I don't want anything that came from a campground," I said, unusually decisive about food, implicitly taking responsibility for spending more money than necessary, "Is there a restaurant still open somewhere here?"
"Yes, a cafeteria in the shopping area, it may close at eight. It's expensive."
"Let's try to go there."
The van started out of the restricted parking area and into a construction-exacerbated traffic snarl that was the current state of affairs at the South Rim.
"How was the drive around?" I asked tiredly.
"Fine," the non-conversant answer. After all, here they were.
"Did you do laundry in Tuba City?"
"Yes, it was hot."
"When
did you leave the other campsite?"
"When did we leave, Katy? (Katy was the one with the watch.) About 8:45?"
"Yes," Katy's deep voice, always succinct.
Traffic in the lodge area made for a circuit around abandoned railroad tracks. Those tracks used to be the only way to get here. Santa Fe originally developed the site as a sightseeing attraction along their right-of-way. The whole area was now under construction, big changes reflecting modern transportation modes. We passed a cutoff that said 'Residential Area, Do Not Enter.' Viann remarked that they had gotten lost in there earlier in the day. There was a school, a fire department, a self contained village of the people who work here, some permanent, most temporary.
The next landmark was the familiar four-way intersection, which was only a two-way stop. Impatient shuttle bus drivers honked at clueless drivers. We turned toward the campground and business center. Most of the businesses there were closed but the cafeteria would be open until ten. We got out; three of us walked and two of us hobbled toward the center. At least there weren't heavy packs to carry.
Not
only was the cafeteria open, it was busy.
It was as if two tourist busses had just discharged loads. German was a predominant language here too,
same as below. Viann and I got chicken
pot pie dinners. Hot and
plentiful! My appetite was back! We stood in line with the tourist
rainbow. The kids took too long in the
bathroom washing up and worried us.
Yes, we were returning to normal civilization.
Katy and John tussled at an inappropriate time and place. We paid, sat, and ate. Between
kid assists and kid talking
interruptions, nearly as much as usual, we related some of the high
points of
the hike. There had been the party of
retired gentlemen just as I was feeling old, the heat, the Amarillo,
Texas-like
surroundings down the creek, being sick at the bottom, the ranger at
Three Mile
House on the way up, the suspension bridge and the river.
Viann listened with polite interest; Viannah
didn't correct anything. The other kids
listened without interest. We were
home.
The
First Shower
Not to miss an opportunity to make money, the gift shop next to the cafeteria was also still open. We drug the kids through and past and made as smooth an exit as we ever did, as any family of five with pre-teenagers ever does. It was fully dark outside now, the drive to the campground was just a few hundred yards. Everything seemed incredibly nearby when this vehicle technology was used. We stopped at the campsite for clothes, towels and rolls of quarters and drove back up to the showers at the entrance of the campground, half a mile back. No night this for hiking a mile in the dark to shower.
The showers close at 10:30 p.m., that is, they quit letting people in. We had a few minutes to spare. They were not busy; just a few people were in showers, men's or women's. Just a few were doing laundry in the middle, a TV on the wall blaring some network late night talk show, another of the unpleasant reminders of our return to civilization. Again, John went with me and the girls all went together to the other side.
I was about to take my boots off for the first time in seventeen hours. John was the same as always, getting the wrong things wet, preserving dirty clothes and walking on clean. I tried to keep him straight. I had forgotten about my moleskins. Some were on so well that they were painful to get off. The bottoms of each big toe had what looked like four layers of blister upon blister but felt like nothing, or just calluses. I made a ball of used moleskins for the trash. We washed off the dirt and grime of a hike out mingled with that of hot afternoons in Tuba City and waiting on the rim.
A
Good Night's Sleep on a Mattress
My regular shoes seemed hard and uneven as we stepped over streams of soapy water on the floor on the way out. We drove direct back to the campground and to our beds. Viannah's journaling ambition lost out to fatigue this time. I could still talk about our experience, still relate episodes, but a few minutes of laying still on an air mattress with no ordeal ahead that was in some way unknown, and I was asleep. I slept well into the morning, that is, until after seven a.m. I had dreams. I had no worries. This was luxury camping. Now we were on vacation.
Thursday
Morning in Campsite #22
I awoke at 7:30 in soft warmth a little past dawn. Finally, as always, a trip to the bathroom necessitated getting up, and once up, I stayed up. Today we were sightseeing; there was no need to pack. Campers around us were packing up to leave that day, beating the weekend crowds out, perhaps.
Breakfast was made. We ate. Viannah got up later. Items were packed for a picnic lunch. We made plans for the day. First to the store for memento clothes and supplies, then to I-MAX. Viann had called yesterday about I-MAX.
The Park Service information person had answered, "They are not associated with the park."
"I know," said Viann, "how do I get there?"
General directions were given. No love was lost between the Park Service and the un-controlled, 'sprawling' concessions nearby.
We went through the much-accustomed procedure of securing the campsite. Not really securing, but putting things out of sight in the tents and zipping up the doors. So far as I could tell this is what everybody did while camping and rarely was anything disturbed. Anyway, I thought about what might be stolen. There wasn't much in the tents that anybody could want, or that would be difficult or expensive to replace.
With starts, sidetracks, memory lapses and leisure disorganization, this securing business took about an hour, not all that different from getting out the door at home. Part of the delay was lack of pressure from a clear course of action to follow, in fact, collective stalling of a decision on where to go and what to do in what order contributed to the mild confusion.
We got in the van and started out at Babbitt's General Store up in the shopping area across from last night's restaurant. In front of the Post Office next door was an area specifically set aside for protests and the address of the Park Superintendent for 'my comments.' No one was protesting today. I didn't write any comments. In front of Babbitt's were Park Service displays. One was the considerable contents of the intestines of a deer that had been destroyed because he was eating food trash and plastic bags. A potato chip bag, a plastic wrapper, they all looked like they might be the real thing. An appetizing display for the entrance to a food store.
Babbitt's was a full service grocery; it clearly was capable of serving the whole community in its various forms of visitor-ship and permanence. To one side was an extensive gift, apparel, and camping supplies shop that would rival Sport's Chalet back home. We tried on T-shirts. We would buy them either here or up in town. Not wanting to prolong the ordeal, we picked ones here and also picked out ice and a few other camping supply items. Much of my interest in maps and books was gone. There was one good map of the trans-canyon trails themselves that I wish I'd had rather than the other two that I did have but hadn't been able to use much, but no, it was too late.
I-MAX
We checked out and returned to the van for the trip past the park boundary on the way to Tusayan. Access roads and "No Camping Here" signs filled the roadsides until we were out of the park where they were replaced by private roads and "No Trespassing" signs. In a few miles we started to see development, a McDonald's with a Play Place, a Motel 6, other motels and hotels, gas stations, museums, kid parks, an airfield with airplanes and helicopters, some coming and going on sightseeing trips right now. In the middle of town was the I-MAX surrounded by gift shops and eating places. We parked and went in. I was always more worried about the car and its contents in a place like this than the much less protected gear back at the unguarded campsite. Back to civilization indeed.
Shows started every hour; we had about half an hour left before the next one. We were low on cash. A close count revealed enough for the five tickets, which we bought. I started trying to figure up the mean cost per minute but kept getting stuck in the middle of a multiply-divide trick, kicked in a higher level of mental force but still couldn't quite do the problem without using pencil and paper, a clear violation of my expectations and rules for this situation. Viannah had been missing for a long time. Viann went off to the rest rooms to look around. While she was gone, John disappeared. These separations were common enough, I tried not to get excess stomach acid by worrying prematurely, still it was something to be concerned with until resolved, I started walking around.
Airplane and helicopter tour ticket desks shared the I-MAX lobby. Someone would occasionally stop by but no one ever seemed to stay for a transaction. Quite a contrast to the long line for the I-MAX booth. One plane trip offered lunch at a remote landing strip and a walk around an archaeological site far away from anywhere you could hike, drive, or raft. The posted tour prices seemed high when multiplied by five, or even when multiplied by two. I kept looking around, shots of I-MAX Grand Canyon being made with special I-MAX equipment were around the lobby, a shot of a special boat here, a precarious tripod there. Katherine turned up in a gift shop; John was hiding in a clothing rack, no Viannah. Viann came back asking if I'd seen her, asking in that way that says, 'I'm sure you have.'
No, I hadn't, "Didn't you find the rest rooms?"
"I couldn't tell much in there," was the reply. The clock ticked.
Ten minutes passed, Viannah re-appeared as if nothing had happened. She had indeed been in the bathroom. We waited in line to go in to the show and finally did. It was the standard I-MAX, a hundred feet wide and sixty deep, arranged steeply like bleachers in the middle section of a stadium. Viann and I sat near the center; the kids went to the top left. We decided to let them stay off by themselves. Twice I had been to an I-MAX; twice they had trouble starting the show. At least this time the sound and picture were synchronized. Only Grand Canyon was ever shown in this theater.
The feature began with ancient inhabitants living around the rims, then the European discoverers. John Wesley Powell and his group riding the rapids were presented in a realistic looking reconstruction. It was possible for an observer to get sea-sick on the rapids. The story was retold from the point of view of his journal. The original science, the adventures, the lost men were all chronicled. Then there was a shift to seeing the sights as they are seen, rafted, hiked and 'muled' today. There was a shot of a mule train in the Needle's Eye. "That's where we put on sun screen," I remarked, with a little self-serving excitement.
There was no reply other than a possible "uh huh" lost in the surround-sound.
Then the film took on an esoteric slant. Aerial pictures were shown; we zoomed through crevasses and by cliffs, up canyons and down cracks, a God-like view. Then we shifted to a view of the flyer, a man in an ultra-light. He cruised along to dictation about the value and purpose of such places and such experiences. Finally dusk ended and the flyer was lost in the dark. The house lights came up and we moved to the left to exit. We waited at the door for the kids; they were nearly last out. Once again, we were nearly ready to start a major search for them when they appeared, carefree.
Sightseeing
It was time for lunch; we were short on cash but had the picnic. Viann ordered us back to the van and back into the park. For those with passes there was a drive-around open now at the guard post. No driver's license check today. Up to the rim, we turned right rather than left back towards the campground. After a mile or so, there was a picnic spot on the right balanced by a small rise and a precipitous drop to the left. We pulled in and tried to find a place in the shade to spread out the picnic blanket. All of the unoccupied tables were in the sun. I tried to project the coverage of the shade into the future so we might be in it longer. Dessert featured double-stuffed Oreos that had been packed over forty miles of hiking but not even opened until now. The surfaces had pulverized into black powder that covered everything, little black blobs that tasted like chocolate sugar cookies.
John twirled his Styrofoam plane on the string, sometimes flying, sometimes crashing. What was left of this toy, held together by tape, has been a good investment.
After
lunch and rest and packing up, we drove up the rim and stopped at
various view
points. All were crowded.
One viewpoint looked straight down into
Phantom Ranch. You could see the trees
and buildings from here with the unaided eye.
Direct VHF contact would have been easy, both there and far up
the trail
to the north. We had never really been
out of touch except during Viann's drive around up top, we only thought
we
were! A rock to the east was covered
with coins. It didn't look like anyone
had ever gone out to retrieve them. In
Texas someone would have collected them for a party for the rangers!
Popular
Showers
We packed back into the van and drove west to another overlook, this one barely parking space distance off the road. The kids were tired of getting in and out and had no interest in another overlook. Parts of trails were visible from here but not the ranch or river. I tried to point out to Viannah places that we hadn't gone but had thought about going. It was time to go back to the campground and to start preparing for our evening dinner. Driving back, we passed the loop out to the South Kaibab trail head on the way. It was blocked off except for the busses. No attempt was made to visit there.
We parked at the shower-restroom building. It was mid to late afternoon. There were lines out the doors for showers on both ends. Sixteen were waiting on the men's side by my count and a line of about the same length on the women's. Neither line moved while we were there. We all went back to the car and laid down in the seats for a rest. This was interrupted after about two minutes by another car that pulled up alongside. The occupants went about their noisy business as usual, treating us as if we were an unexpected nuisance, or as if we were posts. I sat the driver's seat back up with a sigh. Shortly, we walked to the bus stop on the main road for our trip in to the lodge area.
A
Ride on the Bus
The bus only went one direction, counter-clockwise. This meant that when we caught the bus, we would have to ride out to the east end before looping and returning past this point, to the main area of lodges. After a wait, the adventure started. This particular bus was not the run that went to the trailhead, so at least we wouldn't be detouring there. As with many bus rides, no sooner were we on then there was some logistical reason for a prolonged stop. The drivers were taking their daily business announcements over the radio and each had to check in and confirm receipt. Our driver, number 423, acknowledged and pulled back out into traffic.
Through the shopping area with multiple stops, back past our bus stop, through the four way intersection in which only two directions were supposed to stop, the driver honked and yelled at the other drivers, a common occurrence. We reached the construction zone and got off at the stop nearest El Tovar, 0.2 miles, Grand Canyon miles without a doubt.
We made the standard visits including Hopi House, an accurate reconstruction of an Indian community house, now a curio shop with low ceilings. The kids went in and try to buy things with inadequate money. Viann marched in, exasperated to extend bail outs.
We
strolled along the edge, past familiar sites, lodges, meeting rooms,
the Kolb
Photo Studio. The story went that Kolb
used to take pictures of people going down to Indian Gardens via mules,
then go
himself down to Indian Gardens to process the photos, only the natural
water
there was good enough quality for processing, then he would hurry back
up ahead
of the returning mule teams to display and sell his pictures at the end
of the
day. He certainly must have stayed in
good shape doing that for a living.
Apparently this went on up into the 1970s. Some
sample pictures were displayed, including one of riders
surrounded by snow.
My
usual fascination with the trail, a path into the rough unknown away
from the
comforts of civilization, was gone. I
could see down to Three Mile Rest House and to the rest rooms near Mile
and a
Half Rest House, and trees where Indian Gardens must have been, and the
trail
out to the point. These were immortal
sites from this particular vantage. The
trails were known to us now, all too familiar intimates.
Even Tonto Trail, which we did not take, did
not look enticing, it looked dry and hostile.
Something of my natural desire for adventure had been lost. I missed it already. Fulfilling
a dream leaves it, and its
consequent adventures behind, at least for a time.
El
Tovar
It was earlier now than it had been when we were here yesterday. Nothing about yesterday at this time occurred to me to think about, to which to make comparisons. For the past many weeks, and by projection possibly for the next many, I had gotten from day to day by thinking what I'd be doing two weeks, or four weeks, or seven weeks from right now. ‘It’s Monday; in three weeks I’ll be hiking in” or “It’s Wednesday, a week from right now I’ll be hiking out.’ I had just had the experience, and right now I was living only in the present. It was time to return to El Tovar and check in for our dinner reservation.
The trek back was lengthened by kid games and normal disinterest in travel progress. Katy and John had to be separated. If this weren't so common it would have led to tension, maybe embarrassment. We, the parents, were far beyond this now. We walked along with them separated, taking active measures to keep them apart, oblivious to what anyone else might have thought or even if anyone was even watching.
At the El Tovar Lodge, everyone wandered off to find the rest rooms in the basement. I vaguely remembered this oddity from our lunch visit to the same dining room in 1989. I approached the reservation desk, half an hour early; it was already busy with pushy people trying to make near-last minute arrangements. It would be nice not to have to do that, having called ours in Sunday evening.
But, on confirmation, our reservation was found not to be there!
I got testy, explaining that I had secured this time last Sunday and that I had talked to two people in the process. The lady in charge of using the book didn't do anything about maintaining it and she didn't deal with the making of reservations, just the fulfillment of them. Finally she suggested that I call the reservation desk and supplied me with the number.
Across the lobby was a house phone. I went to it, dialed the number, and ended up talking to someone who was in an adjacent room behind the hotel desk.
"Oh, you're not with the Wilson’s?"
"No."
Our name had been in the book but it had been marked out in the belief that our five were part of a larger party. It was hard to imagine a scenario where something like this could actually have happened; maybe it was just the standard explanation.
I hung up; someone came out of the door, went over to the reservation table and fooled with the book. I followed at a polite distance approaching as they left.
We had been set up, they would "work us in," it would be just a few minutes.
The service inside El Tovar was excellent. It was early; most of the room was still empty, ("work us in" indeed!). The large staff was fresh and not over-busy. The waiter was, again, from Texas, but didn't let us guess. "San Antonio," he was distracted and just wanted to get down to business. Everyone has bad days; who knows why. Even less often does one understand about other people's bad days. Well, businesslike it was, but one of the busboys overdid himself to delight the kids and made sure nothing ever ran low. The portions were huge, not exactly what was needed when no exercise was forecast for many days to come. They fed us as if we were going to walk twenty five miles tomorrow. I ordered half a duck under orange sauce, just to be sure that the portion was large.
We had dessert; everyone was pleased. Viannah filled out the customer feedback form. We mentioned the favorite busboy by name. A good place to eat, the credit card bill was a little over seventy dollars.
Before sunset we were finished and it was time to go. Tomorrow we would leave and probably not return for many years. Viann had said that she didn't want to come back to the Grand Canyon again anytime soon except possibly when her sister Elizabeth came. Not that it was not a Grand Place, but just that she had seen it and there were still other places to go.
Another wait at the bus stop, another counter-clockwise start in the wrong direction. The terminal for trams to the West Rim was the next stop and the driver was in a hurry to get there before the last tram of the day left, the one from which you could probably see sunset from the edge. Most of the riders got off. Viannah saw one of her fifth grade school teachers, Ms. Arlow, in the crowd, but too far away to make contact.
The stop at the tram station was long. People ran for the bus then sat for ten minutes once onboard. With the sun setting, the bus we were on finally pulled out. Twenty more minutes and we were walking back to the van in the growing darkness.
The
Last Night in a Tent
The final night in the tent was uneventful; we were all sleeping normally again. We got in bed later than usual, no one was in a hurry, the normal final hikes to the bathroom and other arrangements took longer. While waiting, I wandered out into the woods a hundred yards. Although it couldn't be seen, the campground was near a main road that could be heard. I went far enough that I could barely find my way back in the dark.
It was not cold on the rim in this campground; we used no special gear to stay warm. It was not windy. It was not wet.
In my absence, Viann had learned to light the lantern. Rather than following my example, she read the directions. Lighting seemed safer and more effective this way, I wasn't allowed near the lantern anymore, except to turn it off, which I did. Similarly, John and Katy had declared independence with regard to the camp fire. If a fire was built and tended, they would do it now. This was a good thing; having people learn such jobs as they were ready for them.
Friday
Morning, Loading Up
Viann was up first as always. There would be no sleeping in today, it was a long way home and it was time to start. We had some remaining cereal and other leftovers for breakfast and started cleaning and loading. Every significant camping task seemed to take about an hour, whether setting up or taking it down.
One
of the camp lawn chairs was bent up beyond hope, we left it by the
dumpster,
packing the rest on top again on the blanket, bungeed.
All in, all secure, radios working, we were
ready to drive away shortly after eight.
The
Final Tourist Hits
Viannah and I had not seen the South Rim Visitor Center. We joined the crowds. It was still early enough to get a parking place without cruising. Viannah picked a cassette tape she liked and begged to buy it for $11.00. Later, I discovered it was music inspired by Olympic National Park in Washington. The music was relaxing for a long freeway drive home anyway.
The Center had an eighteen minute film on the Canyon. Parts of it paralleled the I-MAX production; there was more science ("Look at those red limestones; they're really gray but have red material seeped in."), more safety lecture, less philosophy. Outside were some old boats that had been used rafting the river, including the oldest such boat still known to exist. It was from a time after the Powell era, the 1890s.
The
guest bathrooms were cavernous; in a far corner of the “Men’s”
was a
tiny steam heater. When it got cold it
must get really cold in here. Today it
was warm, the windows were open, it was around ninety already.
We
were back at the van; the little kids were fighting.
It was time to get on the road.
A left turn out of the visitor center and we were on the way.
Going
Home
The drive south on 180 was flat and straight. Development was underway along much of it. There were older airports, restaurants and campgrounds. Geological features, like that cone shaped mountain you could see from the North Rim were passed by, huge from here, the Grand Canyon invisible now except possibly from the top, and nobody was going to the top today. The non-view was soon in the rear-view mirror.
We stopped for gas in Williams and from there to Barstow it would be I-40, the old Highway 66 route. Back on the road, I tried tuning around on 40 meters for a possible contact or schedule with friends back home. I could hear something on 7268.5 KHz, the net and rendezvous frequency, but nobody I could hear was strong enough to be easy copy. It was mid day and only far away stations were present. I made a swipe across the band and turned it off, just extra noise.
By half past noon we were in Kingman and stopped to dump the remains of our cash at the Burger King which was the most convenient right off the freeway. There was a line of a couple dozen, lunch time. The help were cheerful; the manager even came out and passed out king crowns. Viannah was too old for one. The large play place was in a separate, enclosed room making the dining area quieter but the play place still air-conditioned. We made a long stop of it, ran everybody around, rested and hit the road again just before two.
The wind was howling as we neared the state border, it took two hands to drive. The temperatures were soaring; outside it was over 100 F. The geodesic buildings alongside the road were still there.
We crossed the river back into California, bypassed Needles, and pressed ahead across the Mojave Desert. Close to four, I got bored with driving and everybody else was asleep or otherwise occupied. I turned on the radio and tuned 17 meters. Phone CQs yielded two contacts, one with a station near the Washington - British Columbia border, the other with Walnut Creek, California. The band was close-in today, probably E-Skip. Both contacts were well supported by the ionosphere and ran a quarter an hour to a nominal, cordial completion. As usual, I could nearly read signal levels by looking at the nearby terrain in the direction of the other station. Rock blocks.
At the end, I tuned around some more, found 7-1/2 word-per-minute code practice from W1AW in Connecticut. After ten minutes of this, I turned off the noise again for the remainder of the trip.
Another gas stop was made in Lenwood, just beyond Barstow. It was still hot and blowing. Papers blew out of the car when we opened the doors, empty bags escaped. We stretched the stop, but one runs out of stalls after a while and we were back on the road for the last big stretch over the Tejon Pass, back to I-10 and I-210, through Pasadena, off at Ocean View and to the house. It was Friday evening and we were slowed by heavy traffic once back in the big city.
Back
to the Routine
On reaching home from an overnight trip, Viann and I immediately turn into cleaning monsters. We wanted the van empty, all the stuff put away or otherwise disposed of, and the van cleaned, usually washed and vacuumed, before resting. The kids usually headed straight for the TV. The normal behaviors on each side led to the normal strong language and pleas of indignation. We drove up at 7:22 p.m. and were done with this chore by nine, including removal and replacement of van seats, rug scrubbing, and a rinse off of the mud gathered on the Saturday drive out. By nine thirty I was on the telephone getting eight messages off the message center, the backpacking gear and other luggage and laundry were moving through de-staging areas, the washer and dryer were both churning away on lots of dirty clothes. Everybody had warm, thorough showers; we all slept in our own beds.
Saturday
morning I took the van in to top it off and buy milk.
With the gas station mileage recorded and these purchases
logged,
the trip was officially over.