Shoshone Point

Tuesday, 9/5/2023

We started out our day by buying some java at “Wicked Coffee.” The word “wicked“ can a couple of meanings in contemporary English. I don’t think they meant our take-away meaning - “Extremely unpleasant.“ That’s what the coffee tasted like! Extremely unpleasant.

It was nearly an hour and a half drive up to the Grand Canyon. The sun light was bright and intense. There were beautiful, pine forest lining, the smooth two-lane road. Woody said, “I could drive this forever.“ We kept her eyes peeled for elk. We were surrounded by green Ponderosa pine mountains, and there was very little traffic. Suddenly the forest opened into a wide open, flat grassland at 7835 feet. Then, after a while, we were back to pines. There were burned sections of forest. The changes were rapid . At times the landscape was low, scrubby pine, then towering pines, and then wide-open spaces for miles and miles with cream colored spike grass.

Near the town of Valle we noted, widely dispersed tiny homes, trailers, shacks, and RVs.

We stopped at the Grand Canyon visitor center to use the restroom and drove onto Shoshone point parking. We had intentionally avoided seeing the Grand Canyon at the center because we wanted to experience it on this trail that we discovered through our National Geographic book. It was a 1 mile hike on a nice dirt road. We saw only one person as we walked and had a vista of the whole canyon all to ourselves for at least 20 minutes. The canyon was breathtaking! The silence was deafening. The temperature was ideal with a light breeze, and only a few pesky gnats. We sat there in silence, and also sang together the hymn “How Great Thou Art.” How can a person see this and not believe in the Creator?

We drove on to catch the view at Moran point, and then turned back to stop at a picnic site and enjoyed a great sandwich with chips. After lunch, we decided to try to go to the west end of the canyon and see it from Pima Point. Google maps took us down a dirt road and told us to turn at a road that was gated and closed. So, we decided to press ahead but eventually discovered that the entire road was closed. Thank you Google maps! We just had a car wash yesterday, and now we needed another one. (Google owes us $8 for that second car wash!)

We had a bit of difficulty driving back with Google's “help,” but made it back to walk out to Mather Overlook. There were lots of people there, but it was well worth the time and effort to go back there. That point offers views of spectacular drop-offs and a Kodachrome collection of colors. There were accents and languages from around the world. Still, all Porsche was interested in were the squirrels.

Continuing our practice of listening to music related to our current location or artists from that location, we listened to the Grand Canyon Suite, Linda Ronstadt, and (briefly) Alice Cooper. 

We had considered going to Sedona, but decided it was going to be too much driving. We stopped for ice cream at the Flintstone resort in the town of Valle and then got a car wash and went to Fry’s for groceries. We enjoyed great scrambled eggs with cheese, tomato, peppers, broccoli, and bacon while we watched old Flintstone cartoons. We have both been very hungry for vegetables! Porsche enjoyed the neighborhood as much as we did. She loved all the sights and smells around her.