Yogi Bear and the Grand Canyon

These three pictures show the sun rising over the Grand Canyon and then the Grand Canyon itself.

Wednesday 28th Roland and I woke at 4.30 am and staggered along the path, just in time to catch the sun rising over the canyon. Then it was back to the bus for the journey to the start of Angel Trail. We took our first steps into the canyon at 6 am. It was deceptively easy walking down – like a gigantic and never ending sand-stone staircase, spiralling ever deeper in time. . . the old, old west, and then earlier still. The canyon, I believe, is a mile deep, but the spiralling path is something in the region of ten miles. It wasn’t exactly a broad highway to Hell, but the thought crossed my mind later in the day, when it was time to climb out the damn place. 

 Walking down was magical, a little like bouncing along the yellow brick road, only here we were surrounded by vibrant ochre, intense heat and silence, the vegetation a strange, bluish green. It took just under three hours to reach the bottom, where we paddled in a very green Colorado river. The temperature was rising fast, and it wasn’t even midday. Time to get out. 

I remember craning my neck, looking up at a distant rim, the thread of a path winding its way up the now glowing rock. I started off alone with a water bottle, (I realised too late) was too small. Mind you, one fool in the group had no water-bottle at all and was in a very bad way – re-hydrating barely in time at each of the three water-stops.

 The first water stop was at Indian Gardens, five miles up. It was lakin to being trapped in a red, radio-active oven – a 100 degrees and rising. The sparse vegetation was chuckling, though I may have been hallucinating. I was dehydrating fast, sweating dropping off me in a small monsoon. The worst thing about sweating is not the smell, but the loss of something you never really think about - minerals. I was aware of my joints seizing up, like an engine losing its lubricant. 

 Then just before mid-day, I reached Indian Gardens and drank, and drank, and drank. Just five miles to go and two more water stops to look forward to. About a mile from the top I witnessed a ‘Yogi Bear’ moment. 

Bear in mind, I’d never seen real ‘park rangers’ before and this one looked just like Park Ranger Smith in Yogi Bear, right down to the hat he was wearing. Only instead of Yogi Bear he was addressing a very fat woman in a bright, floral dress. She was wearing high heels and was slumped over a very large boulder. Immobile, Inert, despite some very urgent prodding from Park Ranger Smith. “You can do it, ma’am. It really isn’t far.” Every so often he looked upwards, as though the crest of the canyon might be lowered by a mustard grain of faith. She wasn’t persuaded and I left them there where they remain forever in my memory. 

 A little further up, two other members of our party emerged like lizards from the shade of a rock. Sharon and Dorita who, with more wisdom than the woman in her floral dress, had walked until they felt hot, and then slept in the shade, waiting for it to cool again before beginning their ascent - little over half a mile.

 Gary, our driver, and the rest of the group staggered out around 6pm. Gary was in a pretty bad shape but incredibly cheerful having achieved what he wanted. As I remember, Laura, having taken the New York advice to heart, never went down. 

 The day began quietly. It ended with a bang. We ate dinner in a storm. 

  This picture is the same as the first one above but turned upside down, because I'm a simple soul, and to me it resembles an alien landscape

The Hoover Dam, not without its warts

Tuesday 27th

We set off early for the Hoover Dam, about 25 miles from Vegas. I didn’t know what to expect, and to be frank, was looking forward more to our ultimate destination, the Grand Canyon.

In the scraps that constituted what I optimistically called a diary, I apparently ‘learned’ that the dam, far from being a public works scheme, was largely built by convict labour.

Who told me that, and where he got his information from remains a puzzle. But all the records seem to suggest otherwise. Mind you, in terms of wages, work conditions and the total lack of concern for worker's safety, they might as well have been convicts. Other than explosions and similar mishaps, tunnels were often filled with carbon monoxide from vehicle exhaust. Truck drivers came down with CO poisoning and many died. The contractors, however, paid off the doctors to attribute death to other causes in order to avoid compensation...a salutary thought as you stare at the gleaming white concrete and magical, turquoise water.

That morning I was bombarded with figures and facts:

Its reserve of water, Lake Mead is the largest man made lake in the world and the Arizona Nevada border runs across it. The dam blocks the Colorado River in Black Canyon and it remains the largest dam in the western hemisphere:
660 ft thick base, and 45 ft crest, it stretches 1244 ft across the canyon. The water stored in Lake Mead irrigates three quarters of a million acres across the USA and half a million acres in Mexico.

And to this day I wonder why I bothered to write them all down. I mean, who cares? It’s hardly likely to set fire to a party; hardly likely to set fire to this blog.

But there is, perhaps, a darker side to the dam.

As the name suggests, the project was conceived and began under Hoover’s presidency, though Roosevelt largely gets the credit for it.* And whilst there, we accepted its visual and statistical triumphalism. The dam is, without doubt, a wonderful piece of engineering. What none of us knew then was its environmental cost.

The Colorado River no longer runs to the sea, but Las Vegas* exists, and against the whole grain of the surrounding ecology, a desert has been temporarily transformed into a tropical paradise – if Real Estate brochures are to be believed.

But for how long? Lake Mead’s level is falling fast as Vegas and other conurbations feed from its water, and all those various needs from competing interests that have arisen ever since the dam was built can only lead to future ‘water-wars’. Already, after a ten year drought, another $700 million has been spent on installing an additional pipeline lower into the diminishing lake, but what happens after that?




I like this picture. I remember falling asleep immediately after. The Hoover ones are 'borrowed' until my slides have been converted into scan-able prints.



We lunched on the outskirts of Klingman, Arizona- a garage, diner and motel in the wilderness. (Which makes us sound like omnivorous monsters.) It was dry and hot, with no sign of life. And then, much later, we reached the Grand Canyon and went to bed early, ready for the descent the following day.

Two things delayed sleep: the arrival of a bunch of irritating New Yorkers who earnestly assured us that only the supremely fit should consider walking down to its base, and that we were fool-hardy to try; and, even more irritating, Laura nodding her head and agreeing with them.

* In May 1931 the then Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes tried to modify history in a thoroughly Stalinist measure, by renaming the Hoover dam - ‘Boulder dam’ a queasily partisan attempt to erase anything that might suggest that it wasn’t only Roosevelt who appreciated the merit of public works.

*Vegas extracts 90% of its water from Lake Meade

From Calico to Vegas

Monday 26th


















Destination – Vegas! The desert was bleak and evocative. We stopped at an old mining town called Calico. It was desolate, breathtakingly primitive, its huts made from rocks or protruding from caves. The land was a dull orange and grey, the sky washed in cloud and rain. An hour or two later a flash-flood swept across the great Nevada desert, a land where our tour guide solemnly told us it ‘it never rained’.


From one ghost town to another. In Vegas we stayed in a fairly plush hotel with a Jacuzzi, and a pool where we played blind man’s bluff. It was a good way to prepare ourselves for the evening to come

We walked to the centre of Vegas and there exhorted to take pictures - the selling point being that the lights were so vivid and intense we wouldn’t need flash. I took my obligatory pictures of virulent greens and pinks and blues. It didn’t take long, and then we were off to our first casino. I thought Reno was the Devil’s Playground. It was merely his porch. This place redefined hedonism.

And we had a whole night.

In one casino – The Lucky Wagon – a fountain gushed out champagne that you drank from paper cups. It wasn’t first class champagne but it was profligate and free and never-ending. Have you ever seen those women near chocolate fountains, they lurk, suck strawberries, fake conversation all the time pouncing with the remorseless rhythm of the metronome. Trapped by chocolate. With me it was champagne. I couldn’t believe it. Maybe hell wasn’t so bad after all.

And then at 1a.m it trickled to a stop

As one we sighed, those brave few topers who’d stayed.

And then the devil had mercy. At 1.15 it gushed forth once more – this time Bloody Marys. It didn’t go with champagne, but we persevered.

At two am I was feeling peckish and located a casino that offered thirty course dinners for three dollars. By this time the pattern was clear. Casinos didn’t really want their customers to go anywhere else or notice the transition from night to day. No Casino we saw had windows, but many had crèches for kiddies so father and mother could gamble with blithe conscience. These crèches also offered unlimited food, along with small toddler-sized fruit machines to start them off young.
In short there was never any trouble in getting into a casino, the problem was mustering the will to get out.















Daphne and I were walking the sidewalk when suddenly she glided from me, caught on an escalator that was easing her off to fresh temptation: Caesars Palace. I followed, bemused by marbled Roman dignitaries, staring at all and sundry in blank disapproval. Behind them gardens glowed in green and pink. And then we were inside, a vast and gaudy space, surprisingly empty.




Even more interesting inside. We had nothing like this in Wales
















Every motel has an ‘admag’ advertising call-girls in graphic and colourful detail, price, appearance and ‘what they do’ are all included. It made for good reading which in itself made for safe sex, I suppose, but where were these creatures of the night?

It was Dana who found out. Walking back from the casino and losing her way she was mistaken for a call girl, not by a punter but by those already in situ. She was rounded on and vigorously warned off from ‘occupied territory’. I don’t know what mortified her most, the ‘verbal’ or being mistaken for significant competition.

We left the motel early evening. The transition from lurid to desert was dramatic. The sun was setting behind distant mountains that fringed the desert. The effect was holographic, the mountains a radio-active pink and almost transparent.

Sodom, Gomorrah and Vegas. Great for two days, maybe three; just don’t be there when retribution strikes. It was horrible and glamorous, and a little unreal. One day it might end up like Calico


debris from vegas

Bored in Los Angeles

Sunday 25th 

 On that day we toured L.A – a dirty and tedious city.  A proud and civic minded los Angelino might take exception, much as I would by anyone who had the temerity to malign Liverpool, but then we each interpret what we see, and what I saw was Universal Studios and downtown LA.

 

At Universal studios I had a shark jump out at me, saw stuntmen re-enacting Wild West gun-fights, observed Dracula haunting his castle and then it was over. Angel Pavement left me similarly under-whelmed. I checked out Roy Rogers, and saw the star of ‘Lefty Frizzell' – who I’d never heard of. I think it should be somewhere in the contract that only people known to Mike Keyton should have their star and hand-prints imprinted in concrete. To be honest, it seemed a sad little honour. Is that all life has to offer, a hand-print in concrete in a sleazy street? Guess so.

 

Night sky --> Credit & Copyright: Dave Jurasevich who kindly gave permission to show another side of Los Angeles. Earth or sky, the choice is yours 

 In the evening we went up to Mount Wilson Observatory and looked down on the lights of L.A. The soulless streets had been transformed - a master-class in illusion trumping reality. Then we politely queued to look at the moon through a telescope. Even now I remember the tedium of that day. It was the first time ever, in America, I’d been bored.

The Disney smile

Saturday 24th



















Despite the Popov vodka, Saturday meant an early start. We had to get out money’s worth from Disney. I began the day jogging, and nearly tripped over Kim’s head. It was sticking out from her tent. ‘I wanted an early call,’ she explained.
Disney land called for discipline and determination, more so because of the omnipresent subliminal message to just slow down and enjoy yourself. Enjoy yourself? Were they mad? We had:

Space Mountain
Inner Space
Matterhorn
Thunder Mountain
Rockets
America Sings
Bear Jamboree
Kon Tiki
A canoe ride with Davy Crocket (be still my beating heart)
Ghost House
Pirates of the Caribean,
Jungle Cruise
Mission to Mars
The People Mover -

- To get through. Never mind the automaton of Abraham Lincoln that was spookily real. I’d have voted for him. Maybe the Republicans should drag him out for the next election – despite what he said, you might not fool ‘all the people’ but you can probably fool enough people to win an election today. An automaton of Abe Lincoln making home movies in Alaska and staring at Russia should do the trick.
























Against this urge to sample everything – some things twice – was the psychic trip-wire of the dreaded Disney muzak. There were hidden speakers everywhere pumping out acoustic syrup and the frightening thing was – it worked. The Nazis wouldn’t have invaded Poland if Disney had been in charge of the music. They’d still be ambling in Bavaria with happy smiles under impossibly blue skies.

I found myself ambling, unaccountably content. It was weird, unsettling – there were still rides to get through.

Eventually it was time for lunch – a late lunch – somewhere around 5 pm; and I joined Gary, Caroline, Kim, Sharon, Roland and Pam in a hired car. We went to a Pizza parlour, ate and bought a box of beer. We were back in time to see the fire-works – but then something frightening happened in the car-park.

Fear with a smile, so to speak.

The Disney ‘police’ emerged from nowhere. I mean from nowhere – even before we had time to take our ‘illegal’ beer from the car. How did they know? Had that bloody automaton followed us or could these guys just smell beer? Are they working on the Mexican frontier even now?

All these questions however were academic against the over-whelming smile. It’s hard to disobey a smile. Put it back in the car they said. And we did.

Just as well probably. We enjoyed the very last ride on Space Mountain which went three times faster than normal. It was a case of clinging on for dear life. A few beers down and we’d have been doing more than gasping. It would have quite ruined the Disney Parade, or at least added more colour.

Intelligent Design

Friday 23rd

























We set off for Santa Barbara and saw the old Spanish Mission and some beautiful suburban houses. I walked with Laura, an attractive, strong-minded Canadian, but with some irritating mannerisms. I know they were irritating. It says so in the scraps of paper that made up my diary, but it doesn’t say in what way and I can’t remember how. Samuel Pepys, I wasn't.

We wandered about, her with those irritating mannerisms, me with my scraps of paper, and looked at some Mandolins – none of which I could afford. So instead I bought a pulp novel called ‘Aztec’ in readiness for New Mexico.

Later we settled on a beach in Santa Monica, and drank more free wine from a nearby winery. Afterwards I practised the mouth organ beneath a palm tree and, in need of some activity, played with Gary’s kite in a cloudless blue sky. (Though not at the same time)
















As you can see it was an action packed, purposeful kind of day. But things were about to hot up!
































In the late afternoon we drove to Little Venice, a famous Californian beach that reeked of body oil and pagan hedonism. We spent some time outside a compound. Inside the compound body-builders posed and worked out, watched by groupies of both sexes and some I couldn’t make out, who watched and drooled, and spoke in intense whispers. Here the body is worshipped – and I was out of place.

The pagan theme was reinforced by a spectacular Grecian sunset, and I understood what a ‘wine-dark’ sea meant at last.

The day ended with a barbecue and Dana got drunk as a skunk. We drank what was left of the home made grog, the surplus rum, and back in the Disney campsite I was persuaded to drink the remains of Kim’s Popov Vodka.

The Disney campsite verged on the unreal – and I’m only talking about the grass. It was so green and dense and lush. It was designer grass, each blade graded within an inch of its life and trimmed by Vidal Sassoon. Elton John would have paid a fortune for a transplant like it, and he could probably carry off – Green.

The site was about one and half miles from Disney-land. It was packed, like the grass, and like the grass, very well-ordered. Two Australians, Brett, and Mark Binks, joined us later that night, their plane having been delayed. Unable to sleep, I drifted on the moon-lit grass and stared at stars that shone with Disney magic. I wondered if the Franchise had designed them too, like the grass.

It was probably the Popov Vodka.

Monterey Bay

Thursday 22nd The Tudor Hotel 

 Getting up wasn’t easy. We left San Francisco at 8am. There were more farewells, more group hugs in the street outside the Tudor Hotel, and then we were off. On the bus I considered the ‘group hug’. From a culture where a handshake is measured and infrequently given I found the concept alien. But something was happening to me. I was slowly morphing into a ‘hugger’ and I wasn’t sure that I liked it, nor whether I’d continue to give great roaring hugs back in England. Bonding-bubbles are weird things, I decided. And now there was more bonding to come as those we had left were replaced by others who were taking the trip from San Francisco. 

 The new Tour leader came across as patronising according to my notes, but then we were young and  lacked grace. The replacement cook, Sandy seemed earnest and a little unsure of herself. It's a tough gig grabbing the baton from another.

They were having to ‘establish’ themselves in an established group, and that would have been hard. Having said that, it was a bit tiresome having to play ‘word-games’ with the relatively few ‘newcomers’ when we could have just talked. When the word-games ended, we passed around the beer. 

 

Around Mid-day we stopped at a winery in Monterey where a guy told me, with evident enjoyment, that the wine they sold to English supermarkets -‘Paul Masson’- was basically ‘plonk’ and that their best wines went elsewhere. He did himself a disservice. I’ve never bought Californian wine since. Then however, I drank a lot. It was free. We ate lunch on the cliffs of Monterey, and later I paddled and pissed in the sea. Not my finest hour and lacked the panache of  Balboa  who marched into that same Pacific ocean and claimed it for Spain. But then he hadn’t drank a gallon of wine from Monterey. 

 I like to think I was toasting Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo. Staring across the bay I’d just affronted I thought of this man, born in the late medieval period of very poor parents. As a conquistador he rose to fame and fortune on the fringes of a strange new world, and still this wasn’t good enough. Like everyone of his generation he was after a short-cut to the east and thought he’d find it by exploring America’s Pacific coast to where he thought it joined Asia, not so very far away. 

 Struggling against storms and bad weather he sheltered in Monterey bay before sailing to Santa Catalina Island to winter. Faced with attack on shore, Cabrillo organized a relief party and rowed to rescue his men. In the records: “As he began to jump out the boat, one foot struck a rocky ledge, and he splintered a shinbone.” I cringe as I read this. Cringe even more when I calculate how long it took him to die. He splintered it in November 1542 but under the ministrations of his surgeon it became gangrenous, and he died on January 3rd 1543. He left no settlements, had found no passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific, had discovered no new route to China. He never even got a sniff of the fabled seven cities of Cibola and failed to sight San Francisco Bay which remained undiscovered until 1769. Interesting how life turns out. I toasted his memory.

  Maps like these that showed Asia and America joined, and not too far away, lured many explorers who always thought that just beyond the next wave they might find it.