Grand Canyon

Not often I’m lost for words (yeah yeah) but the Grand Canyon is way too Grand for me to get close to doing it justice here. The colours, shapes, contours are mystical in a way I can’t describe, so I’ll just say make sure you go there once in your life. It really is up there with the Namib desert and an East African safari as places you won’t fail to be impressed with.

I was looking forward to winding up the locals, in the way that Oscar Wilde once infamously observed that whilst the Niagara falls weren’t bad , they’d be far better if the water went up instead of down! But try as I might, I just couldn’t take the piss. The Canyon is jaw dropping in it’s beauty and BlueLagos with a dropped jaw is impotent in the yank piss taking stakes. I didn’t even get a start, just didn’t have the heart to try. The Canyon has a kind of mystical and spiritual strength that is over powering. The Canyon just leaves you smiling, wherever you looked, you smiled, and everywhere I looked, there were smiling people as blown away by the Canyon as me.

So not much to write really. I did the Helicopter ride and isn’t it always the way that you get some muppet who is so petrified of flying in a Helicopter, that they sit there gripping really hard at their hands and occasionally closing their eyes whenever the Helicopter is thrown about by the winds. Quite how grasping your hands will help in a crash I'll never know, but the lack of handles to grip onto meant this muppet was also pushing hard with his legs away to keep his weight from the door, evidently thinking “what if it pops open?” Anyhow, at the end of the flight, I apologised to those near me for my muppet like behaviour and swore blind I’d never get in another Helicopter again.

I was very impressed with the guide who took me and two others round in the morning telling us a few stories about the Canyon and life as a guide. The best was the yank who, on a sunset tour, enquired that as it was cloudy, might the sun not set tonight? Another classic was the lady who enquired at what height do the Deer turn into Elk? Glad the yanks can laugh at themselves, which is kind of handy at times I guess. The guide was quite a cool dood and he knew his football, or at least he would have done had he not called it soccer. I put him right on Rooney’s shinner last year and convinced him he couldn’t be a Man U fan as everyone detests them in England. I think I got through as he took my email for when he visits London to sort out Fulham tickets. I didn’t have the heart to tell I’m off to Nigeria shortly.

So some facts about the Canyon, 5m visitors a year come and see it. It is over 240 miles long, on average 10 miles across, 1 mile deep and takes 5 hours to drive from one side to the other. This year 21 visitors died with the most common causes are getting blown off the top and hikers getting in trouble, primarily as the 7000ft height catches a few out who are not acclimatised to the altitude. There are just 500 people living in the town near the entrance and 2000 more temporary workers. The nearest permanent other settlement is some 54 miles away.

I was actually impressed with the amount of coverage the native Americans got in the various bits of literature / movie / from the guide. The Indians were here long before the Europeans “discovered” the Canyon and on previous visits to America I always felt as if that part of their history was ignored. Maybe it’s a function of being out West (where the Indians are more numerous that in the East) but the Americans seem to have woken up to this part of their history and culture. The guide took us to an ancient Indian settlement where the tribe stayed in the winter months before migrating in the summer. I spotted quite a few Casinos on the drive from San Diego and these are typically on the Indian reservations and are a significant source of income to the local tribes. But apparently those who stay near the Canyon don’t have any Casino’s and happily tourism is an alternative income that means they can avoid the more tacky world of gambling.

I was going to go to Vegas but decided against it, sitting in a McCafe about 100 miles away. A bus load on their way tp Vegas pulled up, and it dawned on me just how shitty the world of gambling is. The rich and wealthy investors and financial backers making millions from the desperados of society, jumping on a bus to go 400 miles just to throw their money after a dream that will never materialise. I have previously visited Atlantic City near New York and decided I wasn't going to go along with this nonsense. It's a sight worth seeing once, if only to ensure you never fall so low as to need a bet for a fix or worse, to pay a bill. Sad people, sad places, sad days. Not for me I'm glad to say.

On a happier note, some more funny signs worth sharing, with the top one being a poster on route, advertising the “5th Annual Holiday Golf Cart Parade.” This is worrying on a number of levels, namely who came up with the idea to decorate Golf Carts and hold a parade with prizes for the best decorations? Worse, just how dull has your life got to be, that you enter this contest? How many of these dullards are there, that this event then becomes an annual event? Five years running strong? Rural America actually scares me when I see signs like this, which a lover of the pun might observe, are right up there with gun stores in their ability to waste lives.

Last thing to report - minus 5 this morning, ouch! The desert gets hot, but boy does it get cold too. So the hood stayed up on the car for most of the day, as I head West back towards the sea and the warmer lowlands.