Saturday: Flagstaff to Grand Canyon to Las Vegas

I left Flagstaff at 6.30am, hoping to get to the Grand Canyon before 8am to avoid the crowds and also hoping that the light would be better for photos at that time than later in the day. There are two roads to the Grand Canyon from Flagstaff, the shorter and most popular route and the longer eastern route which passes through a one-horse settlement called Cameron. I took the longer route to avoid a bit of traffic and also it meant that I would be driving along the rim of the canyon to the various outlook stopping points with the sun behind me.

Shortly after turning off the main road at Cameron there was a viewing point run by some locals (unlike the official National Park). For a ‘donation’ of $2 I was their third customer of the day, the first two being a German couple riding very heavily laden bicycles and having an animated discussion in German: my German language skills are limited to not mentioning the war but I’m sure the woman was: (a) asking her husband why they hadn’t rented a car like normal people do when the temperature for most of the day is going to be over 30C; (b) providing a general commentary on her husband’s sanity; and (c) wondering what she was thinking when she married him. The canyon here is not a wide or as spectacular as I would see later but still interesting to see and perhaps it is what the larger canyon looked like in its infancy.

At the entrance to the Grand Canyon National Park I was charged $25 to enter the park. The charge is per car, an unfairness that I pointed out to the ranger and he agreed with me but the charge still stood. Payment is preferred by card not cash, presumably the temptation of a lonely ranger sitting at the remote entrance (30kms from the main village of the park) with a box full of cash would be too much for gun-toting locals to resist.

I had decided to stop at every available vantage point. At this time of the day it was easy to park close to the viewing points; later in the day and especially in a holiday season it must be a nightmare. At the first lookout I was treated to the sight of people stepping over a plastic barrier to get to a viewing area that was being refurbished and therefore didn’t have a safety barrier. I very carefully joined them, only in the hope of getting an action photo of one or more of them falling to the floor of the canyon. At the next stop I saw a Norwegian couple (I knew this as they were speaking Norwegian) lift their two daughters over the safety fence in order to get a better photo of the children standing on the precipice. I saw similar examples of stupidity the whole day; the only thing that prevented many appalling falls is the fact that most of the visitors were too big and unfit to climb over anything and their children were too heavy to lift or even pick up; so the obesity epidemic does have an upside!

Quote of the day: i overheard a woman say to a person i presumed to be her husband, as they stood gazing, with their extremely rotund children, at the Grand Canyon "How long do you think they took to dig this?". Her husband didn't answer; he was either slowly calculating the digging time or wondering if he'd married the stupidest person on the planet.

By the time I had driven the 30km along the rim to arrive at the main viewing point near the Visitor Centre parking was more difficult and I had to park in parking area 4 (of 4); this was still not far to the viewing; about 500m.

It was very hazy with lots of glare. This is apparently both a frequent occurrence and a frequent source of complaint by visitors, as at the Visitor Centre there is a list of ‘frequently asked questions’ and the haze/glare question was number three (number one was “where is the restroom?”. A toilet is never called a toilet in the US; always a bathroom or a restroom; a good way to make someone get an uncomfortable look on their face is to ask “where is the toilet?”; so obviously that is always my preferred form of enquiry).

The park is very well organized except for one thing; it is difficult to get anything to eat, apart from coffee and sandwiches that look like they have been for sale for a geological period of time. After carefully looking at the map I was given by the ranger in exchange for my $25 I found that I had to drive about 2kms to get some food at a cafeteria that was entirely staffed by people who looked like they were on day release from a prison; no doubt an admirable way of reintegrating felons back into the community but it made me very jumpy the way they felt it necessary to handle large sharp knives even to do the most mundane task, such as manning the cash register.

By 12.30pm I felt I’d seen as much canyon as I wanted to see so I decided to head for Las Vegas. This took four and a half hours by exceeding the speed limit at every opportunity. I stopped once for petrol in the middle of nowhere and a fellow appeared from behind the building and offered to sell me land; the land for sale being the land next to the petrol station, a bleak, dusty wilderness fit for nothing except possibly building another petrol station. I told him that his offer was very tempting and that I would consider it and that I might be calling him on the number on the flyer he gave me. I think this is the most positive response he has ever had. By the time I was with 60 miles of Las Vegas it was 97F and on arrival it was 101F.

I wasn’t due in Las Vegas until Sunday night but the Wynn Hotel managed to squeeze me in to one of their 4000 rooms, at a premium price as it was Saturday night. I went to see Jess and Faiz in their room which is a couple of floors away from mine (in a 60 floor hotel). My room is huge and even has a large empty area about the size of my kitchen between the bed and the large window (that has 2 sets of electrically operated curtains, one sheer and one heavy duty light resistant); in London I've paid serious money for hotel rooms that are smaller than my bed here. The bath is very deep; if I stand in it (and i have) then the edge is at my thigh! The towels are very large and very fluffy; something my friends at Motel 6 in Fort Stockton, Socorro and Flagstaff could note, as their towels mostly are the size and have the same water absorbency as an A4 sheet of paper.

If you ever come to Vegas then don’t worry about being under-dressed; the dress standard for most places is shirt for men and “opaque top” for women.  After sunset I went for a walk and saw Vegas in all its tacky greatness and then came back to the hotel and watched people lose large amounts of money gambling; but they didn’t seem to care.