Big Hole in the Ground: South Rim

The route to the south rim took us through part of the Navajo Nation. It was marked by a small, rusty yellow sign with the letters painted on. There are houses made of plywood with no windows, no plumbing, and no manner of modern facilities. Lots of them. Even the ones that weren't just plywood were haphazard rusty trailers or tiny little huts.

There are many, many tiny little stands on the side of the road where women sell their handmade jewelry. They specialize in gorgeous silver and stone work, and sit in the blazing sun for the occasional tourist that stops by.

The first one we stopped at had a woman selling cedar seed beaded necklaces and bracelets, and she told us that she hand-needles holes into them to string them on. They're TINY. We had to buy a couple of them. They are dirt cheap, and if you go to any of the Native American store they are easily 2x-3x the price. I don't know if everything she told us was true, but we didn't care. She was so nice, and in Arizona we found that a lot of people aren't.

We stopped at another strip of little plywood shops that sold beef jerky and a lot more jewelry. There was one little kid who was playing with a piece of wood on a string, and he looked ecstatic about it.

We looked up later why they Navajo are so poor, and apparently it is because they didn't really buy into the casino scene until 2004, and even then they don't have any big ones. They consider poverty as not measured in any material or monetary way, but in whether or not one has family.

They were awesome, and we kicked ourselves for buying anything in the stores. If you ever go through the Navajo Nation, don't buy the jewelry in stores. You can find all of the same stuff from their little stands, for cheaper, and I like to think all the money goes directly to them instead of some middleman.

***

We completely blew through the south rim. I mean, seriously, we entered the park and all of a sudden we were at the village at the end. I have no idea what happened. We were trying to go fast to make time to get to Sedona, but I think even if we weren't it would have happened anyway.

The first viewpoint was desert view. It has a tower, but they were working on repaving the road so it sort of ruined pictures.

The reason the south rim is more tourist-ridden is because the views are way better and there are more of them, but it just adds another level of I-don't-understand-what-I'm-looking-at.

We wandered off to find a rock to add to our contraband pile and found more cacti instead!

There was another viewpoint that had a rock wall where people had signed their name. Ang found Michelle Phan written on one of the stones, which is a girl that does youtube makeup instructions. We sat Pandarilla on Michelle.

PETA/DSS would probably take Pandarilla away if they knew how many times we forgot her in the car with the windows up.

This viewpoint was better lit or less hazy than the rest of them.

And, uh, this was another viewpoint. I think there were some ruins to the left at some point. They were lame. But the building was interesting, at least.

And then there was a moose.

Moose's ass, more like.

Can you tell yet that I have no idea what to say about the canyon? I've got nothing. Back when we were Heceta Head Lighthouse, the geologist that was at the breakfast table told us that the average time spent by people visiting the canyon was 20 minutes. At the time, we balked, "How can you only spend 20 minutes?!" but now I can understand. It's just...overwhelming. I believe it is one of the seven wonders of the world (depending on which version of the wonders), and it deserves the title. You need to see it at least once in your life, and you will probably agree with me, and also not be able to find words for it. It takes 4 hours to drive from one rim to the other. 4 hours. It is insanely massive. I'm tempted to google what other people have said about the canyon to pretend I'm a better wordsmith, but there you have it. The Grand Canyon.

Not sure what happened, but the sky wasn't actually purple.

It is also filled with tourists from all over the world. I wanted to ask someone to take our picture at Mathers Point, which is the big daddy of views. I couldn't find a single english speaking person in the sea of tourists, other than this guy:

But I was too afraid to ask.

At the entrance to Mathers Point, there is an engraving in the ground that indicates all of the Native American tribes that call the Grand Canyon home.

We started to walk back to the car, when I spotted an old man with his wife. He was wearing a Veterans hat, and he took our picture for us:

Derp. Derp.

Random quotes:

We mailed a couple of postcards to our boyfriends, and when we went to the dropbox, there was an old british man standing there looking confused.
"Excuse me, how do I send this pistcard?" (yes, he said pistcard, not postcard.)
"Oh, you just pull this part down and put it on top and then it will drop down when you close it."
"Oh, I am too stupid."
We didn't think to look at the time, but I hope they had stamps on them. International stamps.

Ang, reading park brochure: "One canyon, two rims? Of course there are two rims. Otherwise it would be a fucking cliff!"