Beyond Words

     It is somewhat like pictures of Salt Flats I have seen, the place where daredevil drivers try to break land speed records, except that Salt Flats are, well, flat.  White Sands National Monument has snowdrifts.  Make that sand drifts.  Make that gypsum drifts.

     The National Park has hills, too.  Perhaps the most amazing thing is that things grow, plants grow, in the gypsum drifts.

     It’s possible to tour the white sands without ever leaving your car.  The paved road from the visitor center gives way to sand roads that for all the world look like roads in snow country complete with ridges thrown up by snowplows.  When the wind blows above 16 miles per hour, if I remember correctly, the gypsum sand drifts.  Snow plows clear the roads in the wake of the windstorm and the park is back in business.

     I am not sure if they close the park under windy conditions, but I would not want to be driving my car if the sand was drifting.  If you have ever dealt with sheetrock or cleaned up after a sheetrock project, you know how clingy the particles can be, though the sands aren’t as fine or powdery as sheetrock gypsum is. 

     The word is that the gypsum washed down out of hills surrounding the park.  Then the wind blows the flakes and particles.  The sifting tumbling action breaks the bigger particles down into the fine sand. 

      You could drive around and never get out of your car.  But you are encouraged to get out.  There are walkways and a few trails, a place to unload your horse trailer, for instance.  They even sell the disk type sleds in the gift shop so you can take a ride down a sand hill.

      We watched a camper slide down a good-sized hill.  As I watched, the thought upper most in my mind was how to get the sand out of my clothes, particularly out of my underwear.  What a wimp I have become in my old age.

      We stuck to the walking paths constructed with recycled plastic decking.  It was a beautiful day with only a light breeze and plenty of sunshine.  The winds wipe out all the tracks left by creatures.  We only saw tracks made by humans, but if you get there early after a windstorm has erased the desert, you should be able to see tracks left by insects, birds, snakes, lizards, and rodents that call the place home.

     We began our exploration of National Parks at the Grand Canyon.  That really is beyond words, or even pictures.  The sheer size of the canyon challenges the imagination.

      We took a tour package, which was good and not so good.  We stayed at the Railroad Hotel in Williams, AZ, which included four meals at the Harvey House. That was all good and well, with the possible exception of the fact that our first night at the Harvey House, the beer machine was out of order.  I managed to survive.

     On the morning when we checked out, I realized I should have delayed my supper on that first night and spent a little time in the hotel bar.  It was magnificent with all the old-time fixtures such as a gigantic mirror behind the bar and the grand woodwork everywhere.

     In addition to hotel and meal accommodations, our package included a train ride to and from the canyon.  Once we arrived at the canyon terminal, we were entitled to a bus tour of the canyon rim.  I wouldn’t take that bus tour, if I had to do it again.

      During the train trip, each car had a tour guide.  Not everyone in our car had the same tour.  Some would stay overnight in the cabins at the park’s headquarters area.  Some would wander around for the three hours before the train returned to Williams.  Our guide was making suggestions for all of us.

     For the ones returning on the train, she suggested about an hour walk along the rim of the canyon.  That’s what we should have done.  On the bus tour, we stopped at two parking sights along the rim and we had about 30 minutes to wander around at each site.  Our tour included lunch at one of the three or four places to eat at the park headquarters.  Then we had another 45 minutes or so to wander around before the train left.

      So we spent a little over an hour actually looking at the canyon.  The rest of our time was on the bus, in the cafeteria, or “ta-dah”, the gift shops.  I would do things differently if I could.

     A free shuttle takes you out to a far point.  You could ride the shuttle back or pick it up at a few other places along the line.  Or you can walk the rim trail back to park headquarters and the railroad.

     It was a cold windy day the day we were there, but it was tolerable.  We stayed warm on the bus.  Plus the bus driver/tour guide was a rather roughhewn lady who could handle the Greyhound-sized bus and talk. at the same time.  She regaled us with stories of people going over the edge of the canyon to their doom.  It was all in the name of keeping us safe, of course.  But it pandered to our interest in death and dying by accident.

     She said the Park tries to keep a lid on the deaths as much as possible, but they have to acknowledge that people do go over the edge.  The canyon is a big place, a huge place, and it isn’t possible to fence or wall off every bit of it.  As she said, there are fences and rails, rock walls, and unprotected raw edges to the canyon.  There was also ice and snow on some of the pathways the day we were there.  Stay back from the edge.

     No problem for me.  I can’t bring myself to within two or three feet of a drop-off that plunges straight down for feet and yards.  One lady who held some important position but not identified by name stood by the edge of the canyon when a gust of wind took off her hat.  She tried to grab her hat.  She is no more.

       She also told about cars going over the edge.  As she said, those had to be planned.  The roads and parking lots are all hemmed in pretty well.  A driver has to have knowledge beyond what a normal tourist would have to get a car over the edge of the canyon.  She didn’t say, but they must all be suicides.  What she did say was that hardly anybody used their own car.  They all went over in a rental from Hertz or Enterprise.

    

     The train ride to and from the canyon was entertaining.  Our hostess was a fount of information.  Before we boarded the train, at 8 a.m., four cowboys put on a show that involved real live horses, real live six guns with blanks for ammo, and a spoofy shootout.  After about a ten-minute show, they herded us onto our train car.  The Marshall in the shootout boarded the train and went along to “protect” us.  We also had two guitar players who sang western songs, one going and a different one coming back. 

    On the return trip, nearing Williams in somewhat forested terrain, we were notified there was “trouble ahead.”  Outside the train, two guys on horses, the same guys in the morning shootout, rode up beside the train and fired their six-shooters in the air.  We couldn’t hear them, but we could see the smoke from the gun barrels.  No fear, the Marshall was on board to protect us and the train wouldn’t stop.

      But then the train did stop.  The two handkerchiefed bad guys boarded the train and “held us up”.  We all tossed a few tips into the short guy’s leather bag.  A little later, after the train began to move again, the Marshall entered our car and said he had the bad guys in custody and we could reclaim our lost items by reporting to his office, three blocks from the train station.  And by identifying bills by serial number or photos of lost property plus affidavits pertaining to those losses.

     The train ride was fun.  The beer machine in the Harvey House was back in working order.  All was well.  We did have to go to three gift shops because the tour package contained two $20 gift certificates.  No sense leaving cash on the table, eh?

      Snow from Flagstaff to Williams—not warm desert in this part of Arizona.

Using the site locater

     We went from Williams to Tucson where we interviewed at the airport for our “Global Entry” pass.  We couldn’t get in at DIA for an interview until next July, more than a year after our application was accepted.  You only have a year from the application date to get the interview. We originally applied in June, thinking to use Global Entry when we came back from Italy in October, but we couldn’t get into DIA until the end of October at that time.  No problem scheduling an interview in Tucson.

     We spent a week in Tucson, then on to Carlsbad, New Mexico.