Ok,
As we've accumulated suffering traveling through Arizona, Wyoming, and Utah, I've looked down the barrel of SO MUCH blogging that I've put it all off. So in order to get caught up, this single post is a medley of all the suffering.
Grand Canyon
So as we left off -- the hotel had attempted to rip us off, but through a little "bluff calling" we avoided $300+ in overcharges. Huzzah. So, the next day, we signed up for a "Jeep Tour" of the Grand Canyon. We thought about doing the helicopter ride, but it was incredibly expensive for the whole family, so we opted out and went with the Jeep tour, which sounded pretty cool.
Since we were ahead on our hotel thievery, we opted for the "Deluxe" tour, which included not ONLY the Indian Cave tour, but also the SUNSET TOUR -- now tell me, would you not want to sign up for that? Of COURSE YOU WOULD! So we did!
First, on a positive note, I'd like to say that our tour guide, Buzz (same name as our rooster), was a very nice man. He put us all in the jeep, which was really just a big pickup truck with benches welded on the back and a cheesy canopy over the seats to make it look all "safari."
We headed off, and I figured we'd be lead to some amazingly remote location, deep in the Canyon. Nope, we drove about two miles out of town, then down a public road, then onto an access road behind the airport (yes, they have a pretty active airport there), then down a little more dirt road, into a little gully and we got out. Total distance, probably about 3-4 miles from town, no more than half a mile from the airport.
We walked down a trail, and Buzz told us all that just recently some hunters had run into a mountain lion there that had attacked one of their dogs -- but mountain lions won't bother us now. Cue Nate worrying about mountain lions for the rest of the tour, thanks Buzz. I spent a large part of the time explaining to Nate that I would throw him over my shoulder and run if we saw a mountain lion, and he was also reassured by the fact that I would fight the mountain lion while he and mom ran away -- because that's what I'm here for -- to get eaten by mountain lions.
So we got to the cave, and yes, it was cool (I'll post pictures of all these things under separate cover, this is my universal complaint post, suck it up). The family that traveled with us had a few boys older than Angie who needed to point out through their behavior how happy we are that our kids are good kids. They were touching the paintings (please don't touch the paintings, they're thousands of years old), and constantly taking the "challenging route" and making Nate nervous (well, there's this way that's a little tricky, or we can all go down here and back up which is easier -- there go the boys, so Nate's gonna want to go too -- and now we're nervous).
But all in all, while only five feet from downtown Tusayan, the cave was cool -- then I figured we'd go on a longer walk, or see more caves. Nope -- that part of the tour is over. That's it -- one cave, some paintings, we're done, back to the car, the back roads of the airport -- town, and McDonald's (we met and left from the exotic McDonald's parking lot).
Oh well -- that's ok, we're having fun -- let's get ready for the "Sunset Tour"!!! Sounds exciting -- I'm sure we'll go to some remote location that will get us awesome views.
So, after about an hour break, we head back to the jeep (btw, Buzz drives like a psycho -- which the kids loved -- thought it was like a ride), and head to the Grand View (home of the former Grand View Hotel, which has a patchy history that I might mention another time).
Now THIS time, the tour goes by way of 18 miles (MILES) of forest road. If you've every driven on forest road, the dirt and bumpy kind -- suffice to say, it's well -- long. We stopped a few times to learn about trees and things -- that was great. We got to a lookout tower that we went up (pictures elsewhere maybe). Then we headed off -- to make it in time for the SUNSET!!!!
Exciting, we've paid $100 per person for this opportunity -- this is the game saver for the whole Grand Canyon tour -- the reason we came -- to get awesome pictures of the Canyon at sunset from some overlook that the tour guides knew.
That would be the Grand View... you know the Grand View? The one with all the parking for the few hundred people who came by way of the road instead of by way of the forest in a canopied pickup truck? We paid $400 total to basically be chauffeured to a public location filled with tourists. We took our pictures, I did my best to get something of value with our little digital camera, and then we drove home.
I was taking as many shots as I could, but I think maybe Buzz's favorite show was on at 8pm or something, because once we were done with pictures, he raced down the highway (no more hour on the woods road for us) back to town in about 20 minutes.
I'm not sure about other areas, but if you ever go to the Grand Canyon:
- Don't go to Tusayan
- If you can at ALL afford it, take the helicopters
- If you plan ahead enough, you should book a hotel in the canyon itself, I hear that's where the real vacation is -- this was just dirty, greedy, and grotesque
Coffee
Ok, this isn't so much a kick on America as it is an explanation of the added features that made this all so wonderful. Caffeine needs to be managed and distributed correctly, not by people who haven't been trained!
I tend to like to avoid caffeine, because I thought it made me irritable -- but after careful examination, I've learned that it's the absence of caffeine when you're on it that makes you irritable!!! Give me a freaking coffee already!
Going backwards a bit, we got to Yellowstone (this would be after our near disaster with the brakes), and baby, I needs me a coffee. So we head up to Yellowstone Village, which is really just the lodges with cafeterias and such. We're hoping to find some steak, meat, or other low-carb food for me, and a coffee. Espresso would be nice -- but coffee will do.
Now one thing you may not know is that Yellowstone concessions are the summer job destination of Europe and Asia -- so all the jobs are being run by people still working on well ... their English.
After waiting on line while a girl chatted up her boyfriend instead of serving the meat (you're serving MEAT, don't you understand that involves feeding blood eaters? Stop chatting and give me my food!) -- I skipped that and we all left to find coffee. Shortly thereafter, we found an Espresso stand -- wow! How wonderful, how stupendous -- an actual Espresso stand!!!
So I walk up and ask for a Breve Latte, and so my new friend won't get lost, I explain, "that's with half and half."
"Half and half?", she says, "OK!", and turns around to start making it ... and says to me as she turns, "I know that one -- half decaf, half not decaf."
"Umm ... no, it's made with half-and-half."
"Oh!", she smiles knowingly, "we have half-and-half over here." ... and points to the little half-and-half containers on the counter.
To save her life and my sanity, I just said, "Nevermind." and walked away.
Ok -- now fast forward 48 hours to my favorite town, Tusayan. At this point, I'm all whacked out on nasty caffeine delivery systems like Coca Cola Zero and "complimentary coffee" from the fauxtel we were attending. Then we discover that there's a STARBUCKS in the nice hotel across the road (!!!)
After heading over there the first day, we found out that it was only open from 6-11am. So the second day, panicked for coffee, I headed over at 10:30 to the basically empty hotel lobby of the "nice hotel" in town.
I go up to the little stand and the girl is chatting up some guy (there's a lot of that going around, I guess). So I stand there and she walks over. This is not a Starbucks, it's a "proud to serve Starbucks" -- a fake. But well, I'm ok with that -- let's just get down to business. I look at the board behind the stand and it says, "Breve" and offers a price (I'm doing the Breve because I can't have a regular latte on low carb, yes I sound like Euro trash, I know).
So I order the Breve latte -- she bills me, I give her like a 50% tip for my joy that I'm going to have a real fake Starbucks... and she starts making my latte.
She pours out some milk into the steam bucket -- I ask, "is that half-and-half"? She says, "We don't have any half-and-half."
I would like to point out that at no time during any of my coffee experiences, did I yell.
At this point the shots are pouring, the milk is steamed -- we're through. So I just tell her, "you owe me $3." and turn to leave.
Then her boyfriend makes a crack. "What, no tip?"
Well, again, I'd like to point out that, having had no coffee, having had my dreams of a coffee dashed, I didn't yell. I turned on him though...
"What's your name?"
"Nevermind, it's ok."
Looking down, I see that he's filling out a W-9, he's either just gotten a job, or is applying for a job at this very establishment, and is already cracking wise with the customers.
"No, really. What is your name?"
"Nevermind, really, it's all good."
No it's not." (not yelling) "I could ruin your whole day, probably your whole job, genius. You need to learn to keep your mouth shut."
Then I turned and left. Hope that helped in some way to teach him not to crack wise with customers -- maybe he'll keep his job.
Onward -- at this point, we discovered that I can stomach the McDonald's non-sweetened ice coffee -- so that became our backup solution. Now, as we enter every town in the more civilized states of Texas, Oklahoma, and to date Arkansas -- we locate a real Starbucks for me and Kathy.
The Navajo Nation
So we left Grand Theft Canyon and headed into Arizona.
There, we saw signs indicating that we'd entered the Navajo Nation. Nate found that very interesting -- that there could be a sovereign nation inside our country. He turned that around in his head for some time, talking about how he wished it was a full country, and asking why it wasn't. I explained that the Navajo Nation was able to do most things of a sovereign nation, but there were things we couldn't let them do for our own well-being. Like they couldn't make deals with bad guys to put nuclear warheads inside our country.
That somehow or other lead to discussions of the Navajo Code Talkers -- which excited us a lot. Nate's into WWII somewhat, and when he learned that these very people helped win the war with their unbreakable code, he was stoked. Then we told him that we'd planned to go to the Code Talker's Museum!!!
That was awesome, how exciting -- woohoo.
More on that in a second.
On the way, we saw a sign indicating "dinosaur footprints" with an arrow pointing off the road. This stop, while seemingly "home made" (lots of hand painted signs, etc.) was established enough that it was in one of Kathy's guide books. The book said we'd have to give a small tip to the locals, who would then gladly guide us to the footprints.
We rolled up, and a nice enough guy met us, only a few sheets to the wind.
They were all working out of shacks by the side of the road, and some were selling jewelry. We felt it was nice that they'd had a chance to set this all up, and wasn't it too bad that it had to be so run down:
Our guy showed us some cool stuff that I will share under another heading. Real tracks, they were neat. He would pour water on them from a beat up old 7-Up bottle to make them easier to see -- it was hot enough that the water would disappear after about 5-10 minutes.
I asked him if he had always lived here, and he pointed off in the distance to the "rez" that they lived in, said he was 5th generation, that they'd been showing these for a long time and most of the people in the rez farmed.
As we were headed back, he began to suggest that most people pay $10-15 per person to see the tracks. I'm like, "ok, sure" -- I mean, these are pretty down-trodden people, right? We have almost an obligation right? Look at their shacks -- feel this heat.
I pay him $40 and thank him -- then Kathy and Angie go to look at the jewelry. He mutters something I couldn't understand about how his family shows up later to sell jewelry -- and goes off to hang out with his buddies, who are all eating sno-cones from some mystical cooler and possibly drinking beer or something (he was a little ripe).
Then I start doing the math. With the jewelry, we're into this little stop for $50. That's fine, not too much money for seeing real fossil footprints. We're a family of four. We see at least two other families during our 20 minute stay. That's $120 at least, if not more, in about 40 minutes maybe.
Extrapolating a bit, I figure they're averaging at least 20 families a day, they have about 8 guys there, no less than 5 shacks of jewelry, all run down, all hand-painted, all falling over.
Our guide told me no less than 5 times that they get busses stopping there, filled with people.
So I'm guessing they're making at least $1000 per day, if not more.
Ok, so if this was the traffic all year round, that'd be $365k per year. Now, for easy math, let's cut off 30% for slower seasons, now you're down to $250k.
Let's say you subtract another 20% for just slow days -- now you're looking at a TAX FREE (Navajo Nation) racket that's taking in $200k per year conservatively.
So all of the sudden, I'm realizing that either:
A: I'm standing inside a racket that's "hand painted" and rundown because folks pay more to the "locals" because it's authentic.
or
B: These folks are taking in this kind of money and nobody's got the thought to build a better shack.
Either way, it made me a little sick. I want to feel compassion for these folks because they're downtrodden -- but either they're tricking me for more money, or they're keeping themselves down. That's a little nuts.
But that doesn't really make me all freaked out -- just gets me thinking -- but then, we leave and after about an hour, reach the "Code Talkers Museum."
This is the greatest pride of the Navajo People in some quarters. The recognition of the Code Talkers has created a newfound interest in the language, and has caused many Navajo to return to their roots and reclaim their identities.
The Code Talkers are a SERIOUS matter in the Navajo Nation.
Now, Kathy's guidebook warned us that the "museum" was in a Burger King. It was in an area provided by the owner. We're thinking, "Ok. That's fine. He's showing pride himself... we can work with that."
We get there -- figuring it's a room off in the back. Nope, it's a short wall between two rows of booths.
Behold, the Pride of the Navajo People:
The guy at the "museum" is actually just trying to make the computer work -- I tried too -- it was stuck at the windows desktop.
What you can't see is that, off to my right, is the two story "play place" for this Burger King, complete with giant tube slides and bouncy platforms. The dedicated Navajo owner was able to lay out the few hundred thousand in cash for the game room, but couldn't buy a tuff-shed to house the Code Talker's Museum.
But hey, while you're here -- want a burger?
At that point, I'm seething. The "museum" was mainly filled with Japanese paraphernalia that I could see (Yen bank notes, a few guns), and there wasn't much else there. There were a few people walking around as dumbfounded as we were.
So, I take my kids for miles and miles and days and days and what do I learn? If there's a natural resource around, someone's going to surround it and charge you money to see it. If there's anything that could lift up the Navajo people, it'll either cost me money in a racket, or make one of them rich while the others stand around.
What, I wonder out loud to Kathy, is a Navajo teenager going to think of this "heritage museum?" You think this is going to make them feel better? Want fries with that?
So we left. No, we didn't buy any food.
Well -- let's head on to Four Corners. By this point, we're also realizing, coincidentally, that we haven't seen a church or heard reference to Christ in about 4 days and almost 1,000 miles.
All of Grand Canyon is filled with animism and references to Vishnu (the lowest layer of the canyon is called the Vishnu layer) -- and there's not a single Christian anywhere. Just wasteland, greed, and sorrow.
So, we get to Four Corners -- Nate and Angie's first really anticipated location.
As we roll up, in perfect predictability -- the Navajos have set up a shack requiring money for this monument that was built by the Federal Government.
See that little sign at the bottom? Well, Eagle Scouts get a little card, it's call an Eagle Card. It lets them get discounts and free entry to National Parks, Trails and other Boy Scouty kind of things. The Navajo want to make sure you realize that's not happening here -- so they have carefully painted a picture of it with a circle through it.
Oh, they don't take credit cards -- that would incur a tax. All cash please.
So, four corners is where four states meet. The monument looks like this:
Clearly a National Monument -- blocked off by the Navajo, surrounded by shacks... selling t-shirts and gadgets.
Once again -- something free, surrounded by greed and blocked off unless you pay a fee. Makes me sick.
Well, after those horrors, we finally got out of that godless area, arrived in Texas and reached a Giant Cross -- one of the largest in North America. That's my next post.
