Summer 2007

How the West Was Won
 

BY BOBBI BUCHANAN
 

"Do they have swimming pools in the desert?" my 9-year-old daughter wanted to know when I proposed a vacation out west. Rachel couldn't fathom a summer excursion to anyplace other than Florida with its balmy beaches and cheap souvenirs.

My stepson Bryan, who was 11, worried we'd run out of gasoline on a desolate highway with nothing but an occasional tumbleweed rolling past us. "We'll die of thirst, or get eaten by coyotes," he predicted.

I expected the two-week, cross-country trip to be most trying on Aaron, our 18-month-old son. I figured he'd be fine if we drove at night. My husband David was doubtful. I coaxed him by adding a stop in Las Vegas to the itinerary.

I was 17 when I made my first cross-country trip with two of my sisters from Los Angeles to Louisville. Back home in Kentucky, I was inspired to write about it. I recalled the landscapes, the brilliance of the Colorado sky, the vast plains of Kansas poised against snowcapped mountains. I couldn't wait to show David and the kids the Grand Canyon.

We spent a few days in the Rocky Mountains, then took in the splendors of Utah's boulders and the Hoover Dam before arriving in Las Vegas. Three days later, we headed southeast through the Painted Desert to Winslow, Ariz. I considered the trip a success when Rachel and Bryan started asking questions about the Trail of Tears and the Continental Divide. I was elated that they would be taking home something other than sunburns and crummy mementos from gaudy gift shops.

We were all exhausted the morning we set out for the Grand Canyon. Rachel and Bryan argued over radio stations, and Aaron kept climbing out of his car seat. It seemed we'd had our fill of the great outdoors.

I checked the park map and steered onto a road that would take us to the nearest overlook. Rachel and Bryan were slumped in the back seat when the edge of the canyon came into view. David saw it, barely visible through the pine groves — a bright emptiness enveloped in stark, rippling layers of rocks. He roused the kids. They sat up, and I could hear them gasp. They begged me to stop right then and there. I found a place to pull over and we piled out. Rachel and Bryan rushed ahead.

"Be careful," I yelled, though I could see they'd stopped short of the canyon's edge and stood there, shoulders heaving, staring out at the panorama. I hurried to catch up, leaving David and Aaron behind. Rachel and Bryan climbed down a slope of rock and posed in a series of silly stances, throwing their arms in the air and making peace signs as I snapped off photos.

We walked along the edge to Bright Angel Point. Rachel stood straight and tall like a beautiful Indian girl, trying to judge the distance between us and the endless strips of limestone and shale. Bryan pointed out the Colorado River, an abrupt band of blue that snaked through slants of yellow, brown, pink and gray rocks.

We kept going, on foot, finding each new angle more breathtaking than the last, each new shade or streak of sunlight more striking in contrast to the canyon's depths. The kids chased lizards and salamanders, and inspected tiny cacti and other desert plants strewn across the sandy boundary of the South Rim.

I didn't have to tell them that the cliffs at Bright Angel Point drop 5,000 feet to the Colorado River. I didn't try to explain the formation of the canyon, the layers of sediment that covered the roots of these ancient mountains. I knew by the looks on their faces they would find out all that stuff on their own.
 

Bobbi Buchanan is editor of New Southerner.