This year for Thanksgiving Long Beach Schools had the whole week off. Why? Furlough days. The state's financial crisis led to budget cuts which caused the school district to decide to lump three of the mandated 5? furlough days onto Thanksgiving break. Not a bad idea, really, unless you have a real job. Fortunately, my time is a bit more flexible, so we decided to take a mini-vacation that week and spend Thanksgiving at my Aunt and Uncle's house in Arizona. We planned this out in advance, for once. Actually, funny story there. I was in NH for my grandmother's memorial service (no, that's not the funny part) and I was talking to my parents and sister about Thanksgiving, and Aunt Sh was standing nearby, so, just to be obnoxious, I said, "we can all meet at Aunt Sh's house," and she said, "That's fine with me! The more the merrier." So we quickly agreed to this plan before she thought better of it. Sweetie thought it would be fun to drive out (and cheaper) and then we could also do some sightseeing at some National Parks.
We decided to leave the Sunday before Thanksgiving and drive to Barstow to get a leg up on the drive to Arizona. It was very windy and even a little rainy, which for Barstow, is kind of unusual. Also unusual was the notice they handed us when we checked in at the hotel. Recent water tests had found unacceptable levels of chemical contamination, so none of the local water was to be consumed (you were still allowed to wash in it, but...yeah). The desk clerk gave us 10 bottles of water. I felt very bad for that community. Can you imagine not being able to use the water that came from your tap? Anyway, the next morning we were off to the south rim of the Grand Canyon!
From Barstow, we took I40E, following the path of historic Rte 66 ("...Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino..."). It was a long drive across the Mojave Desert, and while this might be entertaining for a while to an adult, the landscape gets rather monotonous to two young boys. So we have a DVD player in the car for them to fight over. Calvin almost instantly broke his headphones, so Sweetie and I got to listen to, but not watch, several movies. We also had arguments over who lost the remote, who was pulling out the chord that connected the two monitors, the ever popular what-are-we-going-to-watch-next, and who's turn is it to control the player. Finally we crossed the Colorado river into Arizona. Northern Arizona, if you haven't been there, is very pretty - much more forested than I thought Arizona would be.
The weather had been sort of gloomy - plenty of cloud cover - but we'd only had a few snow showers that didn't really amount to anything, so we were feeling pretty good about dodging a weather bullet, since we were driving a Prius with bald tires. We got to Williams, and turned north on 64 to get to the park. We stopped to get gas before we got into the park, and then the snow started. Deceptively light at first, but then it started sticking to the road. At that point, Sweetie noticed that all the cars coming south were covered with snow. We briefly weighed abandoning our plans, but, I argued, "we're only 20 miles from the park; we're practically there!" So we pressed on as it started snowing heavier and heavier, and blowing. Eventually we were crawling along, having seen at least one vehicle that had slid off the side of the road, in near whiteout conditions. (Sweetie claims this to be an exaggeration, however I maintain that we NEARLY DIED.) We got to the park entrance at which we were asked if we were staying in the park that evening. "Who," I thought to myself, "would be arriving in the snow in the dark and not staying?" However I politely informed the nice young ranger that we were staying at the Yavapai Lodge, and could she do something about the weather.
We slipped and slid our way to the hotel and checked in. The snow had stopped and we realized that we were now at the Grand Canyon in the snow at night with a full moon. This was too good an opportunity to pass up, so we decided to drive over to Yavapai Point and look at the snowy canyon in the moonlight. This was when we discovered we couldn't find Hobbes' brand new winter jacket that was bought expressly for the cold weather we would encounter on this trip. We had it in the hotel the night before, but now it was nowhere to be found. Emergency jacket rearrangements were made (Hobbes wore Sweetie's fleece over every article of clothing he brought, while Sweetie wore her rain jacket over every article of clothing she brought), and we ventured out. Well, I should note that there was fresh snow on the ground, so we couldn't go anywhere (from the car to the room, from the room to the car, etc) without a five minute delay while the boys consumed snow while getting their gloves soaking wet. I tried several times to explain the concept of wet gloves=cold fingers, but the temptation of the snow was too strong. But we did get down to the point. There was no one there, and the wind was fierce, so I kinda parked at the bus stop, thinking we'd just be there a few minutes. We got out and walked to towards the rim. Hobbes immediately announced that he was freezing to death and had never been colder in his life and was miserable and wanted to go back to the room. We coaxed him to the rim so he could be amazed at the beauty. He was still freezing "to death". The new fallen snow (not that much really, maybe 3 inches) clung to the horizontal surfaces near the top 1/4 of the canyon. The bluish tint of the moonlight reflected off those white caps. It was lovely. But it was also about 25° with a 25mph wind. We didn't stay long. When we got back to the car, there was a Ranger pulled up behind our car. We waved, sheepishly jumped in the car and drove off.
Back at the room, summer was still in full swing. The thermostat was a bit touchy, and decided that it needed to be 85° in there. I had trouble sleeping, waking up finally at 4:30am unable to fall back asleep.
Around 7am we all got up, dressed as warmly as we could (long underwear, sweaters and sweatshirts, wool socks) and headed out for a day of exploring. The temperature was in the high teens, I think at that point. We went back to Yavapai Point (being careful to park legally) and did the morning Ranger talk on the canyon's geology. We learned the Canyon was formed by DUDE - Deposition, Uplift, Defenestration and Erosion (I'm not sure I remember that third one right). The Things earned Jr Ranger Badges which they pinned to the front of their fuzzy hats. Calvin made a snow angel. Then we took a hike along the Rim Trail up to Grand Canyon Village. It was still cloudy, which gave the Canyon a very dappled appearance. Different peaks would catch the sun at different times, and with all the canyons colors, it was rather kaleidoscopic in effect. Being appropriately dressed (although still with wet gloves) the Things really enjoyed the Canyon. At the Village we had lunch. There were quite a few people there (unlike the area in which we were staying), and when I saw the line at the restaurant I thought "this is going to take an hour", but we were seated very quickly and had a great lunch!
After lunch we decided to take the bus out to Hermit's Rest. To get to the bus stop we had to walk down past the head of the Bright Angel Trail. We saw several groups of hikers going down, and the Things were amazed at the concept of hiking down to the river. The bus stops at several overlooks on the way out to Hermit's Rest. We got off at a few stops to get some fresh views of the Canyon. The clouds had cleared away, and the temperature was now above 30°, so it was getting quite pleasant. Hermit's Rest was beautiful and remote. We hiked a very little way down the Hermit Trail, and then thought about getting back for dinner and some well-deserved rest. On the way back, the bus passed a small herd of elk. We had seen some mule deer and squirrels earlier in the day, but these were our first elk. We got back to our car, did some souvenir shopping, made sure we had all our NP stamps, and went back to the hotel.
That evening I turned the thermostat down until the heat clicked off, not knowing if it would click back on again. It did, keeping the room a much more comfortable temperature. When we woke up the next morning, this really strange frost, I think it was hoarfrost, like snow flakes standing on edge, was coating our car. It was time to leave the Canyon and head south to Aunt Sh and Uncle Ch's house near Tucson. I was a bit worried about how the roads would be since the temperature had never gotten much above 30° during the day and was down in the teens at night, but they were all perfectly clear.
We drove down 64, and took I40E to I17S. The landscape started to change. From Kaibab forest we turned to Sonoran desert. We started seeing the famed Saguaro cacti. To continue our sightseeing, we stopped at two poorly named sites, Montezuma's Well and Montezuma's Castle National Monument. These were poorly named because Montezuma never set foot near them, but the explorers who found them didn't know that. The well is a sinkhole that formed when acidic spring water dissolved a limestone cave. The lake is recessed because a hole in the side of the sinkhole drains it into the Verde River. The Sinagua natives used the location for a long time, then left. The water is highly carbonated (from dissolving all that limestone) and poorly oxygenated, so there are no fish. A unique ecosystem involving amphipods, water scorpions and turtles has evolved there. The castle is a large cliff dwelling that was constructed in several phases. It is in a nice cliff facing the Verde River valley, with trees all around. It must have been a nice place to live. We spent much more time here than we had originally planned, but Hobbes did get another Jr Ranger badge out of it (Calvin's still working on his.) We grabbed a quick lunch at a local casino (it was our only option), which was fascinating for the Things, and continued on to Tucson.
Part II coming - Saguaro National Park East and West!!
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