Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Clark Griswold Experience

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A couple of weeks ago, during my very LONG drive across Route 66 to Atlanta, I did manage to stop by and see the Grand Canyon.

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I almost skipped it, but everyone said "You have to see it...you HAVE to see it." and, since I didn't really have an excuse not to, I decided to take a quick detour and see what all the hoopla was about.

To be honest...it was just okay.

I mean, it's certainly a really big crack in the Earth and something you don't just see everywhere. The view is pretty amazing the first time you see it and the terrain is interesting...for a few minutes.

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But, after the extra hour of driving off the freeway towards it and then another hour of driving through the park to the lot and then a series of tram rides to get to a place with some kind of a view and then hiking a gazillion winding pathways uphill only to see a very similar view as the last place you had just visited...I was kinda done.

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OH...and most of those winding pathways run dangerously close to the edge of the canyon without a single guardrail to prevent you from easily plummeting to your death onto the jagged rocks far below.

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To be fair, my experience was probably less thrilling because I had just driven for 12 consecutive hours and thought, as I was exiting the freeway, that there would probably be one or two quick "Oooo Aaahhhh" areas for photos, a serene spiritual moment to contemplate life, and then I'd slip back into my car and continue my drive completely overwhelmed by the majesty that I had just witnessed.

Ehhh...not so much.

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Although, I will say I momentarily envied all of the other people watching the sunset who appeared to be having the very spiritual experience I had hoped to have upon my arrival four hours earlier.

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They all just sat there calmly and took it in...very relaxed...and didn't seem to care one bit that they were in the way of every single shot I was trying to get of the canyon at sunset.

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So...I quickly knocked them all over the edge with a really big stick, took this picture, and headed back on the road towards my new home.

See Grand Canyon.

Check.

6 comments:

Travvisty said...

I drove all the way to Flagstaff with a friend thinking the same thing, and in a hotel the night before, my friend burned herself chemically in the hottub and so we didn't go. I really wanted to see it too.. Everyone told me the same thing. I feel like it would have been rushed for me too.. I would have gotten the stick as well.=)

Vampire Hours said...

Geez...I'm not sure I want to know how a person burns themselves chemically in a hottub. That definitely would have hindered the Grand Canyon experience all-around.

Yeah, you don't want to be rushed there. The canyon is grand and there is no drive-thru.

Hopefully you'll get to see it another time and no hottub chemicals will be involved beforehand.

Joel said...

Sadly, the natural wonders have a hard time keeping up with people's expectations anymore... it's hard to compete with the intense experiences today's digital life requires, with all it's super-saturated CGI, hipper-than-thou twitter-ific running commentary and addictive need for unrelenting "extreme" drama. But there is a bright side... when the forests, glaciers and reefs are gone, at least they will take all the time-wasting inconvenience of actually being there in person with them... and we can simply enjoy the edited and enhanced versions on 3D Imax BluRay. ;-)

Vampire Hours said...

LOL...you are so right Joel! You should write marketing material for the Wonders of the World that are still remaining. You have a knack for highlighting what's important.

Ironically, as I was driving away from the Grand Canyon, I kept thinking how it would have probably been much cooler to view an IMAX version of it instead.

Sad...but true.

cb said...

Is there a bar or motel near by, cause we were thinking of going there sometime... perhaps a "grand cyn resort" with rocks and waterfall, cute cyn boys? Unfortunately I can only imagine how bad it gets hours past Palm Springs, earth is aged that bad, so as prob is people.
Well at least after the giant tsunamis from giant comet in 2036, it will be a gigantic lake for survivors to bathe in...

Vampire Hours said...

It's nice to see that you're planning for after the apocalypse, Carlton. The Grand Canyon sounds like a nice lake resort in your scenario for the survivors.

There are lots of hotels and stuff near the park, so I definitely recommend staying there at least a day/night so you can enjoy and not feel rushed at all.