Weekend Journey

We took a quickie road trip this past weekend to Sedona, Arizona via the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. The ever lovely Carmel Glover had been our houseguest for the week prior, and we delivered her to Sedona for a workshop she is attending this coming week. (I hope the MyMac readers will hear all about the workshop and her round the world tour in her own blog.) It is always so much fun to show a person sights such as Zion National Park and the Grand Canyon for the first time.

I’ve been to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, but this was my first time to the South Rim. Note to future travellers, the hotels are outside the south entrance of the park. We entered via the east entrance and got terribly confused. We did, however, see an elk when we were driving around in circles, so all was not lost. Silver lining and all that. Plus, we arrived at sunset which was nice. We had a chance to get out of the car and stretch, and wander over to the rim at Mather Point to see the changing colors.

I was vertigo challenged the entire trip. The highest elevation we went through was the Jacob Lake area at around 8700 feet. There is a twisty road the descends from there into Marble Canyon, several points along which you can look over and see nothing but air. I have trained myself to look at the double yellow line in the center of the road and nothing else so I’m able to get down the switchback without passing out. Not passing out is a good thing, as Martha would say, because I was driving. The road down into Sedona is similar. And of course, I DO NOT walk to the edge of the Grand Canyon and look down. Nosireebob. I stand way back from the edge and look across. It’s the same view, only not as deep.

We rented a car, as the Cressida isn’t 700 mile round trip road material. We got a Kia Optima. Nice little car, got around 30 MPG with the AC running full blast all the way, boy howdy but it’s getting hot here.

While wandering the path at Mather Point looking out and not down, I stopped at a lookout area where a rather large gentleman was standing looking down and not out. He had one of those hands-free cell phone devices plugged into his ear. Naturally I moved close enough to him to eavesdrop, though I really wouldn’t have had to, as he was talking so loud. I surmised from his end of the conversation that he was talking with a significant other or wife. These were some of the snippets of conversation I heard: “I don’t believe you really will do something drastic as you have made that threat before,” and “I choose to continue to love you, which is my right to do so.” Variations of this theme were repeated several times. Here’s the good part, though. The entire time he was having this conversation, he was snapping photographs of the canyon!

My husband wandered by while this was going on, and I gave him the old “Get a load of this guy” gesture with my head, so he stopped to eavesdrop as well. We started giggling and had to walk away before the end of the conversation. I said, “Hey, you know what we should do? We should go back and tap him on the shoulder, hand him our camera and ask him to snap our picture with the canyon in the background. I’ll bet he wouldn’t miss a sentence.” That send us into more giggles. Then my husband said, “I hope the person he was talking to wasn’t standing at another lookout in the park with a hands-free cell phone planning to do something drastic.” At that point, we had to sit down we were giggling so hard.

I guess that makes us sound a bit callous but for crying out loud. People who carry on private, intimate conversations on cell phones in public should expect to be ridiculed. Bueller? Hello? Bueller? Seems to me that there are more appropriate places to be having that type of conversation.

Since we had houseguests pretty much the entire month of May I haven’t had much time to write. June looms free except I promised to watch the grandbrats next weekend while my son and daughter-in-law head off to Vegas to celebrate his birthday. Hopefully the kiddie software will arrive by then so I can give it a through review.

One link today and one link only, which is sort of shameless self-promotion by default, and that is to my husband’s weblog. Since I had to work while the visitors were here, he’s done the lion’s share of squiring them around this fantastic desert southwest. The May and first week of June archives contain some pretty great pictures and text on regional areas of interest, and continuing on this week will be some photos of our most recent journey. Enjoy!

Today’s tridiot rating is, (I know, I couldn’t believe it either) a whopping 122.9, thanks to The Symbolics 3600.

Stay tuned.