Home Sweet Home

Tuomo writes: It’s good to be back home where tap water tastes good and the sheets are the right size… The weather wasn’t the most welcoming; we left balmy Arizona around 8 on Sunday morning and arrived in freezing Seattle around 11. Fortunately by the time we got to Langley around 3 - after another long wait at the border though not as long as on our way to the States.

At any rate, what about the Grand Canyon?! Words are not enough to describe it!! The three hour drive from Phoenix itself was an experience itself, as we gradually drove higher and higher, starting at less the 2,000 ft and reaching 7,000 ft by the time we got to the South Rim. As the elevation increased, the vegetation changed from saguaro cactuses to bushes on the mesa to dense pine tree forests. In fact, as we approached the Canyon, we could see patches of snow here and there on the sides of the roads and in the forests. And sure enough, when we stepped out of the car, the air temperature had clearly decreased! Oh but the view… wow!

We settled in our hotel room. Dark, yet deceptively comfortable because we learned later on in the night that the sheets were not big enough for the bed, and consequently were wrapped around our necks while we slept. After a brief snack break we decided to go see the sunset at Hopi Point and get on one of the three shuttle bus tours along the South Rim. Future visitors beware, although there are no signs (i.e. not that we could see any) on this, the shuttle buses only allow seated passengers. In other words, we ended up waiting for a quite a while until we got on a bus because there were so many people with the same destination in mind (go figure!) and the buses did not exactly run every 15 minutes as indicated in the guides.

But the view from Hopi Point at sunset was definitely worth the wait! I’ll try to post some pictures this week, but I’m concerned that they will not do service because they probably won’t capture the perspective, the depth, and the subtle hues of the landscape. I mean where we stood we had an almost perpendicular view into the canyon, only to realize that that wasn’t the bottom, that there was another drop until you could see Colorado River rushing in the bottom…

In addition to lots of oohs and aahs at sunset, there were also a lot of brrrs – it really got that cold! Thank goodness that I had accidentally left my pair of gloves in my pockets when I packed my jacket…!

The following day we got on the same shuttle bus route and drive all the way to Hermit’s Rest, the point furthest to the east. The route beyond Hopi Point will closed down on April 1 for renovations, and the entire route in the summer. This particular route, built originally in the early 1900s as state-of-the-art is no longer such - and lemme tell ya, the planned renovations could not take place a moment sooner! There were times when it felt like the rickety bus was going to roll over and plunge into the canyon… But once again, the views at the end were way beyond spectacular!

Oh and fun shopping was done by everyone… Bless America for tourist shops :-

So now we’re back to the same-old-same-old…

My concerns about weight gain turned out to be correct. Yesterday morning I weighed myself, and though the weight gain wasn’t as dramatic as I had anticipated, there had been some: the scale went up to 212.4 lbs. This morning though it stopped at 210 so there’s hope that by Saturday I will have been able to do some damage control

One more thing: It was Dave’s birthday yesterday, so a belated happy birthday to him!!! 29 (again) and still going strong :-