If You're Afraid of Heights You'll Hate the Grand Canyon

I'm not afraid of heights. The kid is not afraid of heights, as you well know. I'll leave it to your brilliant minds, then, to dial down to who among us had a medium-ish panic attack on the rim of the Grand Canyon in the middle of nowhere, scared the absolute snot out of the rest of us, and will never be visiting the Grand Canyon again if I, at least, have anything to do with it. 

Anyway, that mystery, unnamed, soon to traumatize themselves and us individual was still sound asleep early on this morning when I pulled a sweatshirt over my pajamas, stepped barefoot into my sneakers, walked out the door of my cabin, turned right, and found myself on the edge of the Grand Canyon just before sunrise:

In this pre-dawn hour, the fire at the North Rim was very visible:

My cell phone buzzed in my pocket, and after a couple of texts back and forth, the kid also padded out in her pajamas to join me and a few other early-morning souls for sunrise over the Grand Canyon:

I for sure almost missed it behind that ledge to the right. I scooted over a few feet just in time!

The smoke in the canyon was still visible on this morning, but it didn't look like it was filling the entire canyon like it had the day before--at least not yet:

After the sun was fully up, the kid and I sneaked back into our cabin to silently change into our proper clothes and pack everything up--funny how we can make that much of a mess in one night!--and then we brought our peanut butter sandwiches, chips, and cans of coffee outside to have breakfast with this beautiful fellow:

Has anyone ever eaten a peanut butter sandwich in a more beautiful spot?

If you look, you'll be able to see the North Rim wildfire in every photo I take of the Grand Canyon. Here was the fire forecast for the day we visited. There were also several local news teams whose base camp seemed to be the Bright Angel Lodge parking lot, who seemed to be constantly busy filming various reports every time we walked past. The night before, I'd even snarked on a random guy sitting on the wall of the canyon rim, working on his laptop instead of taking in the beautiful view. Why would you go to the trouble of going to the Grand Canyon just to sit in front of it and work, I bitched to my family. Answer: if you're part of the Arizona Channel 5 Storm Team and you've got a report to file!

After breakfast, the kid and I figured out the shuttle system, then took the scenic route via shuttle to the visitor center. I was underwhelmed by the displays, which were good for what you got but I just thought there would be more of them--

--but you know how I feel about a national park passport stamp! This is my first for Arizona!

By the time the kid and I had finished the museum and watched the film, my partner was up and about, and he loaded the car, checked out of Bright Angel Lodge, and took his own scenic shuttle trip to meet up with us so we could continue our shuttle tour of the South Rim.

The trail visible in the photo below is as far as you could travel Bright Angel Trail on this day. The bottom of the canyon was closed to everyone but river rafting groups, and the South Kaibab Trail was closed entirely:

Y'all, I have the gnarliest tan lines on my forehead, because I spent all summer outside with my hat on like this where it did essentially no good at all. Although I guess the top of my head and the back of my neck stayed nice and sun-free?

The Grand Canyon is the best national park for transportation, because all you have to do is park in one of their big parking lots, and shuttles will take you to every single beautiful viewpoint along the South Rim. 

There are also a couple of extra museums to visit along the route. 

The Yavapai Geology Museum is small but very good.

Way back in 2010, I took this picture of my four- and six-year-olds:

Here's me and that once upon a time six-year-old, now two days from her 21st birthday, at the same spot:

It's not close to the edge at all. It's one of my favorite photo spots at the Grand Canyon because it just LOOKS like it's close to the edge!

Another photo of a little girl long ago:

And here she is today:

The kid and I had a lot of fun trying to pick out the Colorado River from our various viewing spots:

I had to use my zoom lens on this one so it's pretty grainy, but how cool is it that you can see this footbridge across the Colorado all the way from the top of the canyon?

The kid and I were freaking out with excitement over this bird that was riding the wind all around over the canyon at this stop. We'd just been to the San Diego Zoo the previous month and had our environmentalist spirits re-radicalized over the story of the California condor, and we were CONVINCED that this was one of them:

I'm sorry to say, though, that this is definitely a turkey vulture. It's evident in the y-shape of the wings and when I overexpose the photo, you can see the turkey vulture's wing coloration.

Oh, well. Wildlife is wildlife!

Here we are confidently and excitedly observing our California condor:

Again, we're not even close to the actual rim. I took my reading of Death in Grand Canyon very seriously!

We'll skip past any and all panic attacks and/or apocalyptic nosebleeds suffered by anyone in our party on this adventure, and frankly I wouldn't mind having them deleted out of my mind entirely because Jesus Christ that freaked me the fuck out--I was half-convinced I was actually dealing with a heart attack, but I didn't have cell service to Google if an apocalyptic nosebleed is a heart attack symptom--and skip straight on down to the last stop on the South Rim shuttle, Hermit's Rest:

The big claim to fame for Hermit's Rest is that there's a small gift shop and cafe there where you can buy popsicles:

Another nice thing about the shuttle is that although it makes a billion stops at scenic sites on the way out to Hermit's Rest, on the way back it only makes a couple, so it's a very convenient way to get back to one's car. 

Back at the car, we cleaned up, made some more peanut butter sandwiches, and hit the road back to Las Vegas. Four hours later, we were checking into the Venetian, with a room that, in my opinion, has the best view on the Strip:

The next three days will be filled with spectacle and delicious food and poolside lounge chairs and all the ridiculousness that Vegas has to offer!

P.S. Want to know more about my adventures in life, and my looming mid-life crisis? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page!

I Went to San Diego and Ate Some Tacos

AND I got another national park passport stamp!

Although we're not planning any big New Zealand-style trips this year, we seem to be making up for it with a good variety of smaller US trips. Oh, well--who needs a retirement fund in this political climate, anyway? Might as well enjoy the pre-apocalypse while it lasts!

Anyway, this deep dive into San Diego and its environs is likely the only trip I'll get this year with all of my immediate family members accounted for (the detours I force them to take on the way to and from college drop-offs are also fun for me, but are, by necessity, brief little swindles away from the proper business of the day), so I enjoyed it even more for the novelty of having everyone I love together in the same place at the same time doing some sightseeing along with me.

Also Wilbear, because I didn't work that hard to earn him just to make him sit around the house for the rest of his life:

Wilbear wanted to see the Pacific Ocean and learn about Spain's genocide against the indigenous peoples of North and South America, so that's what we did!

Welcome to Cabrillo National Monument, everyone!

This was actually our first stop after the airport. Or rather, our first stop after paying for and picking up our rental car at the airport. I didn't realize that there was yet one more step in the process after getting settled in our rental, so I busily set up the car's Bluetooth to play my Going to California Spotify playlist and then MORTIFIED the children when my partner rolled down his window to do exit paperwork with a rental car guy and Katy Perry's "California Gurls" was blaring.

I personally thought it was quite festive!

Here's a conquistador ready to enslave and genocide, comfy in the knowledge that smallpox and syphilis are going to do 90% of his job for him:

And here's the path that Juan Cabrillo and his fellow genocidal maniacs took in their route up Baja California, the California coast, and all the way to Oregon:

Cabrillo National Monument is a little peninsula where supposedly Juan Cabrillo became the first European to step onto the West Coast of the future United States, but presently it's mostly a cool viewing point where you can watch various ships sail in and out of San Diego Bay, most interestingly Navy ships because the monument overlooks part of the naval base.

Here's me briefly abandoning my two most treasured companions so I can get a better look at a submarine:

Three national park passport stamps so far this summer, and at least two more before the road trip to college drop-offs even starts. AND my America the Beautiful pass officially paid for itself here, with eleven more months of national park travels still to come!

You can also hike down to the shore, where in the winter low tides apparently reveal some exceptional tide pools. There weren't any excellent tide pools revealed during this particular summer low tide, but we nevertheless had fun clambering around, getting our knees sandy, and making sure we'd touched the Pacific Ocean:

And then, off to tacos!

One of my goals on this trip was to eat as much Mexican food as I could fit into my mouth, so birria tacos were a good start:

The older kid had a California burrito, and the younger kid stole most of my tortilla chips and drank horchata. She was super excited at first to see that there was an entire horchata dispenser(!!!), but it turns out that, disappointingly, none of the horchata she tried in any of the restaurants we ate at were making fresh horchata in-house. I guess you can get a dry horchata mix, and that was what they were using? Later on this trip I'd order a jamaica that had definitely been made from scratch, but by that time the kid was burned from too many packet horchatas and so stuck to her Diet Coke. 

Tomorrow, Palomar Observatory and the desert!

And here's the rest of our trip!

• Day 1: Cabrillo National Monument
• Day 2: Palomar Observatory and Borrego Springs sculptures
• Day 3: San Diego Zoo
• Day 4: Maritime Museum and Somali food
• Day 5: Sea lions and San Diego Padres
• Day 6: La Brea Tar Pits and Beverly Hills
• Day 7: Aquarium of the Pacific and a DIY food tour

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!