The Adventures of Fric and Frac: Adventure 312: South Rim of the Grand Canyon/Post A

Home for Now

Yesterday, I felt a little like a returning service vet suffering from battle fatigue, and that was just from the election stress. Thankfully, I've recovered. We left Panguitch, Utah around 8:30 A.M. under the bright blue skies I love so much. Our drive was uneventful, except for the seventy mile patch through the Navajo Indian Reservation where the rough road buckled and heaved, causing Fric and Frac to swing and sway a bit from side to side. Disconcerting as it was, I merely slowed down a bit and endured the dismal scenery of speckled desert with poor clapboard houses and single wides sprinkled like sage brush throughout. The average annual salary of a Navajo male is around $11,000; the average for females is a little higher at $14,000. Nothing I can see from the road promises a future any brighter. We came down off the bluff to catch our first view of Lake Powell, which is about half full (24 million acre feet is considered full). The dam at Glen Canyon is a wonder of human engineering, and the service town next to it, Page, catches as many tourists as it can trap. We took our lunch at a small walk up called Navajo Cuisine, where we met Alicia, clearly one of the best humans I've had the pleasure of meeting. She talked us into two of the Navajo Tacos, one traditional and one with pork. Both were served on fresh made fry bread. Alicia, who grew up in Page, said she has lived there all her life, except for four years in Flagstaff when she was in school to be a care giver. She beamed with genuine friendliness, and although she made sure we knew that even though she didn't look like it, she was part German on her grandfather's side. It is so refreshing to talk with people who have a positive outlook. She said there wasn't much work in the care giving field in Page, so she decided to make a living in the restaurant business. Right now, I'm typing away in the lodge on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon because they have wifi, and besides the World Series is on. We'll spend six nights here. We plan to peek at the canyon from every marked overlook, take a serious hike down into the canyon, and find places to ride the bike. Frac is nestled nicely into the Trailer Village RV Park with about two hundred of his newest friends, but we have power, water, and a sewer hook up. Ain't America Great! I do feel a bit nonplussed because here I am a stone's throw from one of the greatest natural wonders on the planet, and what am I doing? I'm hooked to a device like a tethered dog. But not to worry, I'll keep my addiction under control, taking as much fresh air medicine and wondrous nature serum as I can each day. in any event, I'll continue to count my blessings in the full knowledge that life is good, especially today.