Vantastic
For our family western extravaganza over the next ten days I have rented a 15-passenger Transit van from Enterprise Rentals. There are only six of us, but we have not only baggage, but also all sorts of paraphernalia for the family outing ranging from costumes and implements for the last day Utah Games we have planned to create a grand finale “field day” sporting event. There are hoola hoops, pool noodles, cowboy hats purchased at the Goodwill, homemade chaps (also compliments of jeans and belts purchased at Goodwill) and things in boxes prepared by Kim and my daughter Carolyn, who have been thick as thieves plotting and scheming about how best to embarrass just about everyone attending except the children, who will undoubtedly think its all a big hoot. Also, when we get to Utah we will most likely try to be efficient in shuttling people here and there and going to events en masse wherever possible. I have no idea of what the groupings will be for any given event, but I sense that more van capacity is better than less.
Depending on how you want to group the participants, I figure we have over a dozen family groups and a few stags for good measure. It’s anyone’s guess how the cliques will form during the gathering. Almost everyone knows everyone else to one degree or another. But the governing factors will likely have mostly to do with some combination of the young and the old. The young ones, who number 12 are all pretty rambunctious and mobile except perhaps one of them that is only a bit over a year old. The rest are mostly in the 4 – 10 zone (except for three teenagers) which means they want to run around like a pack of animals as much as they possibly can. We had a preview of that with just six of them on July 4th and besides beating up my Hobbit House a bit, they seemed to get most fun out of bringing notes to me telling me that I was a poop. This involved everything from clever commentary like “Sorry, no not sorry” to unintelligible scribbling and several drawings that looked distinctly like a poop emoji. I’m not sure why I was the object of all this repeated attention, but I’m sure I deserved it. I imagine those family units will want to hang together to please the children. As for the older side of the cadre, we have another dozen of what I will call “old folks” in which I include myself and Kim. Among those, we have two on walkers and decidedly not mobile and another four that are octogenarians, so while ambulatory, only to a certain degree. The other in the middle (technically 21 of them) range in age from a low of 28 to a high of early 60’s, but its safe to say that almost all of these, except for one or two on the injured reserve, are fit and able to participate in just about anything Utah wants to throw at them.
Today we packed the van to meet all our specialized requirements. With thirteen seats to choose from, Carolyn put the two girls right behind us to minimize car sickness (though she does bring along barf bags just in case). Both girls have their iPads and Carolyn has installed headrest holders for the iPads to make their viewing individually convenient. Beyond them, Carolyn has taken the seat nearest the sliding door to give herself maximum legroom and access to the girls, especially Evelyn who has the queasiest stomach. The rest of the third row and the entire fourth row are dedicated to luggage and gathering gear. That leaves the passenger side of the fifth row for John, who needs the separation and isolation since he will be doing his mortgage banking business all during the day tomorrow and Friday and perhaps again next week as we head back through the canyons.
Tomorrow we drive five hours or so to Las Vegas. There is nothing special about that run across the desert, but if you haven’t done it before its kinda interesting. I especially like the massive Ivanpah Solar Generating Facility right on the border between California and Nevada. There is nothing like it anywhere in the world and its very impressive with its focal towers that look like big lit matches. In addition, there are quirky things like the world’s largest bathrooms at a rest stop in Primm. Don’t want to miss that. We will be staying at Sam’s Town on Boulder Highway because it is off the Strip (with all its nasty traffic) and it’s close to my sister Barb’s house. But now I hear that Carolyn wants to show the girls the sidewalk shows on the Strip, so guess who will undoubtedly be cruising back and forth in the van while they watch the fountains at Bellagio, the Volcano at the Mirage or the Pirate Show at Treasure Island, or whatever shows have replaced those wonders. We are stopping to have dinner with Barb and her husband Dave and to officially kick off our trip.
We will then pile into the van and drive another five hour day to get to our Lodge at Red River Ranch just outside Torrey, Utah. We want to get there early enough to beat most of the others so that we can be the welcoming committee and make sure everything is in order. The sights are pretty enough along the way, but we may choose one detour to the Valley of Fire since its more or less on the way and Carolyn remembers that I took her to visit it when she was the age of her daughters.
The five days we are scheduled to stay at the Lodge we will spend driving through Capital Reefs National Park and its Cathedral Valley. Then we will spend a morning going to Fishlake to see the oldest and largest living thing on the planet, a 141-acre stand of aspen trees called Pando that has existed since the last ice age, 11,700 years ago. Pando has existed for the entirety of the man’s modern epoch on this earth. We will spend a day driving the Escalante Staircase to Bryce Canyon where we will see the famous hoodoos and cliff dwellings of the Anasazi that inhabited the area way back when.
Once we have had our Utah Games on the last day at the Lodge, we will once again load up the van and head south to get a good look at Zion National Park, the place I consider my spiritual cathedral with its soaring red walls and magnificent views of the canyons that inspired the greatness of the name, borrowed from the holiest of cities on earth, Jerusalem. It was named by one of the original Mormon settlers, Isaac Behunin, who saw in the steep canyon walls, that make it the refuge from the heat of Southern Utah, the temple of heaven. I couldn’t agree more. We will overnight in Kanab, the closest town to our next destination, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.
This remote spot is only visited by a fraction of the people who go to the South Rim. We will do what is called The Great Circle in one day, past the Vermillion Cliffs and down to the much more populated Grand Canyon that most of America knows. We will do what tourists do, but will not go down into the canyon itself, but rather just look over the vista, get back into the van and head westward to the burro-filled streets of Oatman, Arizona, which promises to be the best ghost town we could find on our route home. By that time we will be in 105 degree Arizona heat in Kingman for the night, so with any luck our van’s air conditioning will still be going strong and take us back across the Mojave Desert to home. The Great American Western Road-trip will be done and hopefully we will have had a vanfastic time.