Today was the day I saw the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is spectacular, unique, breathtaking, awe-inspiring, and dangerous. Sarah's grandmother gave us repeated warnings - "now don't you fall in!" - and they're not entirely unjustifed, as there are few barriers to prevent the majesty of nature getting up too close and personal for 5,000 vertical feet. In fact, as the warnings said, of the people who fall into the jagged, gaping maw of the bottomless canyon, some DIE. Oh no!
Throughout the day, as we penetrated further and west-er into Arizona, my childlike enthusiasm at our ever-deeper immersion into the ambience of the true south-west got greater and greater. So the Canyon had to compete not only with that, but with our previous stopover, Monument Valley. And, to be honest, I've yet to come across anything (inanimate) that nature has up its sleeve which competes with Monument Valley.
It does strike me as amazing, though, that Sarah and I are at this astonishing place and we have it almost to ourselves, at least when we're more than 200 yards from the visitors centre. Just like the empty roads, I envy this completely. Europe rocks, obviously, but it seems like a bank holiday weekend at Disneyworld compared the the openness and peace of the American west.
Other cool things at the Grand Canyon - we see our first CONDOR, which totally rocks. It keeps circling overhead, looking majestic and endangered, but never stays still enough to get a photo of. Perhaps it was all a dream. Better still, we get our first WOLFSHIRT, on a young man holidaying with his folks, called Spencer. I'm going to name my first child Spencer.
On the road on the way to Kingman, our resting place for the night, we saw a series of signs by the side of the road, each line separated by 200 or so yards:
"Train approaching
whistle squealing
pause - avoid that
rundown feeling"
Now I can't remember seeing any train tracks, but hell, it's gotta be good advice. Apart from "pause" - surely "get the fuck out of the way, dude!" I still can't get the image of the kids in Stand By Me walking along the railway tracks out of my mind. In Britain they'd have been hawled off by the local bobby and cuffed firmly about the ear, mark my words.
Other than the canyon and a nice, relaxed drive, the only other incident of note was pulling into our hotel in Kingman and seeing a big truck with the words "American Kidney Stone Management" on the side. A truck, not a car, ambulance, coach or anything. Heaven only knows the pain some Americans must be in...