The Southwest

I went on vacation with my parents last week. Here’s what we did:

--We flew into Las Vegas, then drove out of town to Boulder City, NV. Boulder City was having a barbeque festival, and if you know anything about me or my parents, then you know that we love barbeque. So the vacation got off to a great start.

--We saw Lake Mead. It was pretty, but would have been nicer overall had there been an E at the end, just like my middle name.

--We went to Hoover Dam. I don’t want to point a finger at any specific projects, but they built that thing during the Depression for not that much money. In the desert, big rocks all around…name your challenge. It’s a little baffling that we have so much trouble building infrastructure today when they could do that back then.

--We went to Flagstaff, which was having an arts and crafts fair and a bicycling race. I got a little nervous that each destination was going to have a festival or fair or something that was affecting downtown.

--We went to Sedona, aka Red Rock Country.

--We went to Winslow, Arizona. If you’re not an Eagles fan, you might not immediately recognize Winslow, Arizona as the place where you might be standing on the corner, such a fine sight to see, when a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford, slows down to take a look at you. Take it easy! Take it easy! But it is, and a little park where a statue recreates that moment is about the only thing in Winslow. Yet people stop by to see it. When I was there, there was this old big kinda mean guy, singing the song really loud to his female companion and telling her she should sing along in a kinda abusive way. Then he goes, “Yessir! Don Henley! Taking it easy!” Well, that was the end of it for me, because it was Glenn Frey and Jackson Browne who wrote the song, ASSHOLE. But he was bigger than me so I could do nothing.

--We saw the Little Painted Desert, just north of Winslow. The real painted desert was a little far.

--We went to Williams, Arizona. The rodeo was in town and we stayed in a hotel owned by a Korean cowboy (they had a sushi restaurant and a slogan about east meeting west)

--We went to the Grand Canyon. My mom couldn’t get over how big it was. We had a geology talk by Ranger Paul, who I miss terribly. I took over 100 pictures, so you know, come visit me and I will show you ALL OF THEM.

--We drove to Utah. When driving through Grand Staircase Escalante, it was recommended that we drive the Cottonwood Road. The road is about 46 miles, unpaved, takes two hours to drive, and promises death around every corner. Some reasons I thought I would die on the Cottonwood Road include:
--Driving in a little ol’ Ford Taurus, with no cell service and no one around
--The kid with the gun walking around
--The sand trap that a driver in a Jeep warned us about, that we spent six LONG miles dreading
--The drop-offs where you’d go over a hill and not be able to see the road ahead of you, much like a roller coaster drop off
--The potholes
--The dust
Don’t worry, we made it, and we saw an arch made out of rocks.

--We went to Bryce Canyon, which is very beautiful. It has formations called hoodoos. My parents and I, who are riddled with knee injuries and not big on “nature vacations” managed to go on a hike to see some hoodoos close up.

--We drove to Las Vegas. We stayed at EXCALIBUR, a casino that looks like a castle. It was very very very very very hot but we walked around and looked at casinos and tried to learn about playing slot machines. We went to a buffet. I ate the best gyro I’ve ever had in my life (not at the buffet).

Then I had a bit of an unexpected second vacation, which was going to North Carolina for my grandmother’s funeral. We found out my grandmother died while at the Grand Canyon, and then it was a bit of blur making new reservations and trying to get home despite being out in the middle of nowhere with no cell service. But we all made it and I got to go home for a bit and see my family. I have a great family and I think we were able to come together to make it into a real celebration of my grandmother’s life. I will write more about her in another post.

But first, one last thing I learned about vacationing with one’s parents: you learn a lot about how things are going in the bathroom for everyone. Normally I think I am pretty private about that department, but when on a trip with parents, I guess it all comes out, so to speak.