The Grand Blizzard

While I saw the Grand Canyon once before on a road trip with the guys, Lorna managed to avoid it despite visiting Arizona 3 times before moving here, and living here for about 6 months. After deciding that this wasn’t really a record worth pursuing, we finally decided to make the six hour drive north to visit this wonder of the world.*

When we left Tucson it was a nice December day, meaning 75F and sunny. Six hours, and about a 5000’ climb later we were in the middle of a blizzard with about a foot of snow accumulated. We were a bit shocked, but what’s a little Arizona flurry to New Englanders? So we summoned our northern blood, and trudged to our cute little cabin near Bright Angel lodge just a few dozen feet from the Canyon. Since it was dark when we arrived, we settled in to get ready for a big day of hiking and sightseeing the next morning.

But when morning came we stepped out onto the ridge and all we saw was a fog of whiteness. Below is the view from the Bright Angel Lodge which normally offers a view of the majestic canyon.

After spending an hour or so in slack jawed surprise, we bundled up with the clothes we had (not much since we expecting warmer temps), and headed out to view the many famous and inspiring indoor attractions at the Grand Canyon. While there were about a dozen buildings labeled either “museum” or “historic,” there appeared to be a strict rule not to break a museum to gift shop ratio of 1:1. The one advantage to the fact that each gift shop had largely identical merchandise was that it became progressively easier to hold Lorna back from buying trinkets.

We also scheduled a tour of a house right on the edge of the Canyon, The Kolb House, which was built and occupied by two brothers (Kolb) who had a photography business there in the early days of Grand Canyon tourism in the early 1900's. Just a few minutes before the tour the snow and clouds broke, in dramatic Arizona fashion, and a beautiful snow covered Canyon finally appeared! We still did the tour, which was neat, and provided an opportunity to view the Canyon without standing in the cold. I thought I grew up in a house with an amazing view, but those Kolb brothers were really in a league of their own:

Unfortunately we didn't have the opportunity to hike down into the Canyon due to the very icy trail conditions. However, we still had a wonderful time hiking along the southern rim of the Canyon and admiring its beauty from the many look-outs. Afterall, the best views are from the top of the canyon! Also, an added bonus to visiting during the winter months is that there are far fewer fellow visitors which is always nice.

Since we were only able to participate in some of the canyon hikes and activities, we left lots to do with friends and family who choose to visit. Hint. Hint =) The lodges were clean, affordable, and some looked directly out to the canyon!

Here we are beckoning you to visit...

Random Buggery

I’m going to try to catch up, in no particular order about some of the Vaguely interesting stuff that Lorna and I have been up to. The first thing that pops into my head is Ethan and I rented a dune buggy from a random guy that Ethan found on craigslist. After a bit of difficulty finding the guy and signing a waiver (that I personally found to be a little weak compared to other waivers I’ve seen) we set to work dutifully testing the limits of the machine.

I was concerned before we started that dune buggy riding might be one of those activities that sounds extremely fun, but that just doesn’t really live up to expectations, but those concerns turned out to be unfounded. The “track” (a random dirt path in the desert) gave a nice mix of twists and turns, rolling “dunes,” and straight always with little jumps. Over the course of the two hours we quickly went through the three stages of thrill riding: 1. Oh my god this thing is crazy, we’re going to die! 2. Yeah! This is so much fun! 3. Damnit, why won’t this thing go faster!

Anyway, it’s definitely on the list of fun thing to do in the desert for people thinking about visiting sunny Tucson (and my neurologist assures me that the fact I started getting Transverse Myilitis the next day was a complete coincidence…).

Here's a quick clip, you definitely have to be on it to get the full effect though.