July 5, 2006: The Grand Canyon & Phoenix

As we drove into Arizona, we had to set our clocks an hour back, since the state stubbornly refuses to adopt daylight saving time. It is one of only two states in the union to do so, the other being Hawaii. Are they asserting states' rights or, as Debbie guessed, "Do they figure they have enough daylight already?" Her guess turns out to be closer. Hawaii lies in tropical latitudes, where there isn't a great deal of difference in daylight between summer and winter. Arizona doesn't want more daylight because this would require more air conditioning, thus raising energy consumption.

On our way to the north rim of the Grand Canyon, we passed through about 64,000 acres of scorched timber, where a forest fire had closed the road until only a couple of days earlier. Some of the wood was still smoldering.

Charred signs punctuated the drive. At the Grand Canyon Lodge, Debbie read that the fire had started on June 8 and hadn't been completely extinguished until July 4.

Two firefighters posed while Debbie took their photo. "You're not from the newspaper, are you?" one of them asked. Debbie laughed and told them no.

What can be said about the Grand Canyon that hasn't already been said? Carved by the Colorado River over six million years, it's 277 miles long and well over a mile deep at its deepest point. Its walls reveal more than a billion years of geological history. Its immensity is so intimidating that the boys actually seemed put off by it, and for the second time on this trip we heard those discouraging words: "I'm bored."

We walked to Bright Angel Point, passing a United Nations of visitors along the way, hearing Russian, Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Spanish, and other languages. I spoke to a family from Germany who were wondering where the river was. The canyon is so deep that the Colorado is invisible from the northern rim. "Man muß zur südlichen Seite gehen, um die Fluß zu sehen," I told them. ("One has to go to the southern side in order to see the river.") The rim is over 8,000 feet high, so the weather was pleasantly cool.

Leaving the Grand Canyon, we drove for an hour or so under lowering skies and the occasional shower, then stopped at Cliff Dwellers, where wind-sculpted rocks fascinated the boys. They climbed on one that looked remarkably like a skull.

They peered into another that had been transformed into a crude shelter.

This one reminded Debbie of the aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The drive from the north rim to Phoenix is a long one. It passes through Navajo territory of surpassingly inspirational beauty and thoroughly depressing poverty. Ramshackle settlements are widely scattered, consisting primarily of tiny houses and mobile homes, many of them without utilities. An unreasonably large number of vehicles, some on blocks, surround the buildings, and stray dogs roam the roads. The overwhelming effect is that of a shabby multi-million-acre trailer park.

Stalls, most of them empty, stand along the highway together with signs advertising Native crafts. It must be difficult to retain young people; boredom, lack of opportunity, alcoholism, and other health problems surely encourage many of them to leave.

We bought just enough gas to make it from a Navajo town called The Gap, where it cost $2.99 a gallon, to Flagstaff, where it was only $2.79, the cheapest we've seen so far. At around 9 p.m., we arrived in Phoenix, which I was surprised to learn is the sixth largest city in the US. It has almost 1.5 milion residents.