Day Two - March 25, 2005 - Grand Canyon

I’ve been told that I lie like a corpse when I’m sleeping.

Aside from some major teeth grinding, I don’t really flail around on my bed like some fish out of water. And I don’t think I snore --- well, there was that one time, I made that little snorting noise and woke myself up, but I think that was a one-time deal.

So, don’t quote me on the exact details, because I don’t think I was all that conscious when it happened, but sometime after we all managed to become dead to the world, I woke both Flo and Jen up.

I could have sworn I heard the alarm go off, which made me sit bolt upright. I didn’t even check to see the time --- not that it would have mattered, since I’m practically legally blind without my glasses on --- but I was convinced we’d all missed the alarm and that we were going to be late for the shuttle bus that was picking us up around 6 a.m. to take us to the Grand Canyon.

“Oh my God! Oh my God! We didn’t hear the alarm! We’re going to be late!” I gasped, waking up both Flo and Jen.

“What time is it? Are you sure?” Jen asked, sitting up, too.

Flo squinted at the time. “It’s only 2 a.m.”

Or at least that’s what they told me.

Just as suddenly, I’d flopped back down onto the bed, like I’d been shot by some elephant-sized tranquilizer dart, fast asleep even before my head hit the pillow.

When it was really time to wake up, I lay in bed for a moment, wondering if I’d imagined it.

Flo tried not to laugh.

“Oh, it happened, all right,” she assured me. She did a humiliating play-by-play, demonstrating just how stupid I looked.

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” I said, yanking the covers over my head, so I wouldn’t have to watch anymore.

Aaron had managed to sleep through the whole thing --- which is weird, ‘because we’d all been expecting him to be the worst one to sleep next to. He’d even warned us ahead of time that he’s a bit of a kicker and that some people have actually gone as far as to grab their pillows and blankets and sleep on the floor rather than sleep next to him.

Nobody really wanted the dubious honour of having to sleep next to him, so I suggested that we all take turns so that we’d all get a chance to be kicked by him, rather than having only one person suffer.

But according to Jen, sleeping with Aaron wasn’t so bad. On the bus ride to the Grand Canyon, Aaron asked Jen, ““So, how was it for you?”

Jen gamely played along, hamming it up in the role of the unsatisfied lover, pouting over the numerous ways Aaron could make it up to her.

When we made our way downstairs to wait for the shuttle bus, we kept joking about how the tour was probably a complete fraud and that we should only start to panic when the bus wasn’t here by 6:30 a.m.

They’d told us to be ready at 6:10 a.m. --- which is kind of a strange time ‘cause it’s so exact, you know? It’s not like 6 a.m. or 6:30 a.m.

We tried to convince ourselves that it wasn’t really all that cold outside, even though we knew from the link that Flo had sent us that the weather forecast for the Grand Canyon called for overcast skies and snow and a high of 20C.

How the hell is that even possible?

We were all wearing basically the same outfits we’d been wearing from the day before because it was too cold to wear any of the summery stuff we’d brought.

I seriously thought that the little shuttle bus that arrived at precisely 6:10 a.m. was the shuttle bus we’d be taking all the way to the Grand Canyon. And it worried me that there didn’t seem to be any washroom on board.

Aaron had skipped out early to grab some bottles of water for us from the pharmacy/convenience store next to our hotel. But with no washroom in sight, I was afraid to drink it.

My lips were chapped and cross. I couldn’t seem to stop chewing on the dead skin. Jen said it was because I was dehydrated. Unlike me, she was constantly drinking water --- yet, she never had to go pee! She was like some sort of camel or something.

Thankfully, the shuttle bus wound up taking us to this depot out of which Vision Holidays operates its tours. There was a large coach waiting in the parking lot. And from a short distance, I could also see helicopters.

We went inside to complete the registration process.

Jen got annoyed because the huge group of Japanese tourists behind her kept crowding into her space.

When I was trying to sell Jen on the whole Grand Canyon bus trip, I kept focusing in on the fact that not only would we get to chow down at an all-you-can-eat buffet and that they’d give us a free muffin and drink for breakfast, but that they’d show us not one, but two, recent movies.

It was a little too early to be eating, but I tried to force down the huge chocolate muffin, anyways, and drained the little cup of apple juice --- both of which were sickeningly sweet.

Jen stocked up on some junk food at the little gift shop --- but it wasn’t even the good kind of junk food. It was stuff like salted pumpkin seeds and the kind of crap candy you get at Halloween that you wind up recycling the next day to your co-workers.

It didn’t take all that long for us to fall asleep once we were on our way, even though the driver, a Mexican American named Tony was pretty entertaining. He’d been an extra in “Fools Rush In”, where he had to play a Mexican --- which he said wasn’t all that hard to do.

As soon as he mentioned he was in that movie, I was convinced he looked familiar.

Even though I thought his accent was really neat, I couldn’t understand him half the time. He mentioned that he’d switch with another tour operator once we got to the restaurant for the buffet and that the guy looked like someone who rides a “Holly Davis.”

It took me entirely too long to figure out that he meant Harley Davidson.

We headed out of Las Vegas Valley towards Hoover Dam, making a quick pit stop along the way so that the Hoover Damn police could do a quick inspection.

“Make way for the ‘dam’ police,” Tony said, as a middle aged guy with Ray Bans skipped onto the bus.

The cop methodically opened the overhead bins and peered inside each one, all the while making idle chit chat.

He wanted to let all of the ladies know that he moonlighted at a Vegas show called “Cheap’n’dales” and that he’d ordered a thong from Martha Stewart online, but he’d had had to wait five months to get it.

Ha ha.

As the Tony steadily wended along the winding mountainside, there were times where the mammoth bus was so close to the rail that it was practically scraping metal.

“You want me to drive any closer?” he teased. “If you look over the railing, you’ll be able to see the metal and tires from the last tour bus.”

Tony let us get off at Arizona Lookout Point so that we could take some pictures. And as we got out, it was amazing to peer around.

When we hopped back onto the bus, Tony stuck in a PBS video about the history of Hoover Dam --- which made most of us promptly pass out from sheer boredom.

I drifted in and out.

A cool fact that I learned was that the last man to die on the building project died 13 years to the day of the first man to die while building the dam --- and that man was his father.

As I leaned back and stared out the window, watching the huge stretches of rock and jagged green hills spread out before me, I had this sense of, “Wow. I’m here.”

Do you ever get that sense, sometimes? When you see nothing but the clearest of blue skies above you --- and it’s so clear and blue that it almost hurts your eyes? And the sun colours everything around you, making everything seem sharper, brighter, and clearer?

It’s like there’s vast stretches of nothing around you --- not a single building or person…just this solitary grey strip of asphalt that cuts through the landscape.

You know what it made me feel?

Free.

I couldn’t help but think about one of my favourite John Mayer songs, where he sings, “You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes. It brought me back to life…today I finally overcame trying to fit the world inside of a picture frame.”

It was sort of like waking up from a long, long sleep --- because, sometimes, that’s how I feel. It’s like you get used to this routine that you call life and you start sleepwalking your way through it, forgetting that there’s still so much out there to see and do.

If I had to pinpoint the exact moment I felt happy on that trip, it would be that moment.

I had to poke Jen awake a few times so she wouldn’t miss out on the scenery.

When the bus rolled into Klingman, Arizona for a 15-minute rest stop, Flo and I thought we’d be bypassing the line-up at the Mobile gas station by using the washroom on the bus.

She yanked open the door while an old man was still in it. (The lock doesn’t work properly inside.) And when she went to use it, she soon discovered that the toilet didn’t flush properly and that there was no running water in the sink. She just used to Purell, instead, and I shrinked away in disgust when she tapped me on the shoulder to ask me a question.

The experience was so vile that I decided to get out and go to the gas station’s washroom instead.

While we were there, Aaron found a cow sign, which, of course, he had to get, ‘because his thing is that he likes cows.

He also saw a Chinese restaurant in the distance called, “House of Chan.” He took a couple of pictures of it ‘cause I guess the novelty of finding a restaurant bearing his last name is too good to pass up.

The first movie the driver popped in was “Cellular”.

It’s an action/thriller about a woman who’s kidnapped and locked in an attack who manages to call a complete stranger’s cell phone by tapping the wires of a mangled phone. In a race to reach her husband and save herself and her family, she works with this hot, young guy to figure out who her kidnappers are and what they want.

It’s a little over-the-top, but it was fast-paced and entertaining, which helped to make the time go by really quickly.

By the time the movie finished, we’d driven up over 3,000 feet above sea level. Our ears were already popping and the change in weather was really drastic. There was snow everywhere --- in thick blankets of white and whipping wetly against the window panes.

It was like we’d never left Toronto.

I asked Flo to take a couple of pictures of me, Jen, and Aaron. We huddled together, with Aaron squishing into the seat with me and blocking Jen’s head completely.

Tony regaled us with dire warnings about how easy it is to die at the Grand Canyon.

He told us that there were about 30 suicides there each year, a couple of murders and around 50 accidental deaths --- all by falling over the rim.

He said the number one killer is stupidity --- when people lean too far over the edge to try and one more picture.

“You do not want to reach the point of no return,” Tony warned us ominously.

Jen and I exchanged faux looks of alarm.

You know what was really strange? The snow filled areas weeded out after awhile and we were back to cloudy, overcast skies but green grass and bare trees.

As we neared the Quality Inn Hotel, where we’d be having our 40-minute buffet lunch, Tony decided to give us some tips.

“Don’t be shy. Don’t think about what other people are going to say. If you want four plates, get four plates. Get the four plates at the same time if you want --- it’ll save on the line-up time.”

He added, “Make sure you don’t do any kind of hurling on the bus.”

He claimed the buffet at the Quality Inn was $18.99 per person, but that if we were talking Vegas standards, it was on par with the kind of stuff you’d get at an $8.99 restaurant.

“It’s sort of like buying a Big Mac for $10 here,” Tony said.

“I’m not paying $10 for a Big Mac,” Aaron whispered. “Make sure you write that down.”

The food was just okay. It wasn’t particularly good. But Tony wasn’t kidding about the long line-up. It snaked all the way out into the front lobby of the hotel.

At first, we were going to seriously take Tony up on his suggestion of having one person grab a plate full of meat, another person grab a plate full of veggies, etc., but the selection wasn’t all that great.

They try to trick you by planting drinks and bottles of wine in the middle. If you take one, you have to pay extra.

The guy who took over from Tony after lunch was a big, burly guy with a grey pony tail named Mike.

The Quality Inn Hotel was just outside the Grand Canyon National Park gates, but getting in took about 40 minutes because of the long line up of cars waiting to get in.

It costs about $20 per car just to get inside the national park. Mike told us that for tour bus operators, it could cost upwards of $40. (I think. I don’t remember anymore. It just seemed like a ridiculous amount at the time.)

Mike told us that the Grand Canyon’s the only park where people actually live. About 2,000 live in the Grand Canyon and they’re all employees of the national park.

He said that the kids who live there only have a four-day school week --- sweet!

It seemed like Mother Nature really co-operated with us. As Mike drove us around the southern rim of the canyon and we got out at Bright Angel Trailhead, it was like it suddenly stopped freezing (though it was still cold ---- you’ll notice in the pictures that we’re all sort of hunched over, trying our best not to shake like epileptics in the throes of a seizure) and the sky opened up to let a few anaemic-looking rays of sunlight trickle through.

We’d joked that we were just going to see a big hole in the ground, but I don’t think any of us had any idea what it’d be like to actually stand there.

Considered one of the seven natural wonders of the world, the Grand Canyon spans 446 km. We were only touring the South Rim, which is open all year, while the North Rim only opens from mid-May to mid-October.

The North Rim’s actually 1,000 feet higher and about 10F colder than the South Rim. Who knows? If we’d actually gotten a chance to see the North Rim, we would have been slogging through ankle-deep snow.

Mike told us to walk straight through the Bright Angel lodge --- in through the front entrance and out through the back. (Impossible not to follow those kind of instructions, but when you’re talking about us…and yes, for a brief moment, upon entering, I just stood there and thought, “Where do we go now?”)

Pushing open the door and finding a low brick wall (seriously --- it didn’t even reach up to my hip), I tentatively walked up closer to it. (Both Tony and Mike’s warnings about how easy it is to fall to our deaths was still first and foremost on my mind.)

I don’t think anybody really has any clue about how breathtaking and awe-inspiring the view is until you’re standing there, peering over the cliff and all you see is the great chasm that cuts through the rocks of the Colorado Plateau.

At the Kolb Studio (which is really nothing more than a gift shop), it was possible to make your way out through this really rocky ledge to take more pictures.

Because of the weather, there were huge puddles that made it difficult to make our way along the rough-hewn area. All I can say is take your time and move as slowly as possible.

You can probably actually make out the stone staircase and the rickety railing from the picture on the left.

Seriously, it wouldn’t have taken much to fall over the ledge and become the 51st person to die at the Grand Canyon that year.

Standing there and looking into the canyon sort of feels like you’re looking out over the edge of the world.

People were talking in hushed voices, like we were in a church and the overwhelming quiet was such a marked difference from the bustling chaos of the Vegas Strip.

Jen scared the hell out of me when she decided to take a couple of gag photos of her falling over the ledge and into the canyon.

I turned around and warned her I wasn’t looking ‘cause if she fell in that was the last thing I wanted to see.

Mike promised us that the second stop along the rim offered an even better view.

You really had to wonder how the hell people managed to build observation decks and buildings in this place. Just trying to make my way down was a little scary --- but then again, I’ve never really dealt with heights all that well.

Almost as soon as we got back onto the bus, the sky seemed to split open and flurries began whipping down. It’d already started to feel a lot colder by the time we reached the second stop and it was almost a relief to be back on the bus.

Mike pulled back in at the Quality Inn and insisted on shaking everybody’s hand before leaving. And by shaking hands to “thank” us, he really meant he was coming around to get his tip.

I pulled out $5 to cover all four of us and I felt kind of weird because I felt like a little speech was called for. But I think he really just wanted me to give him his money and be done with it.

Before we left on our trip, I’d run into Aaron on the subway and when I told him this was the first time I’d be going on a trip with my best friend, he gasped and cried, “Me, too!”

I like these two pictures that we took while on the bus ride back to Vegas. Sure, you can’t see the Grand Canyon or the Hoover Dam in these pictures or even much of the bus, but I think I’ll always look back on these pictures and remember that day.

On the drive back, Tony put in “Dance with Me”, but by then, I was really sleepy and it didn’t take long for me to fall into a deep sleep.

When we stopped at a gift shop/convenience store at Kingman, Arizona, we decided to load up on junk food to tide us over until we got back to Las Vegas, which could possibly be around 9 p.m. or 10 p.m.

Jen’s a chocoholic all the way, but Flo and I are into chips. We grabbed a couple of bags of chips and some chocolate bars, but before we paid for everything, we found a rack full of key chains.

We managed to find four sets of key chains with all of our names on them. Flo couldn’t resist laying them out on a cardboard box and taking a picture of them.

It was pitch black by the time we neared Hoover Dam and by then, Jen was actually really alert.

While almost everyone around us was sleeping, we just sat up and talked about various things. I asked her if she thought we’d remember this particular moment years from now when we thought back on this trip.

There’s something about sitting there in the dark that makes it easier to say certain things.

Jen said that she was glad she’d gone on this trip --- that it was comfortable and that she felt free to be who she was.

“You know how you can tell I feel comfortable around you guys? It’s because I wouldn’t have bought all that chocolate and candy. I would have been too embarrassed, wondering what you guys would think.”

As we neared Vegas, we did a quick mini-conference. I reasoned that it didn’t make much sense for the driver to drop us off at our hotel and then for us to get a cab to take us all the way to old Vegas and then take a cab back.

Why not have Tony drop us off downtown?

Jen went up to the front of the bus to see if it was okay with him and he nodded. It was kind of funny, ‘cause when the four of us were the only ones left in the bus, we moved up to sit closer to him and he switched the radio station from one that played Mexican soft rock to a station that played Jay-Z for our benefit. He bobbed his head to the beat and we couldn’t help laughing.

I had to get his tip ready and I peered in the dark, hoping I wasn’t being stupid and handing him a $50 instead of a $5.

He dropped us off in front of the Main Street Station, which the guide books had said offered the best buffet in all of Vegas.

We jumped off, more awake than we’d been all day. Jen, Aaron and I huddled together in front and had Flo take a blurry picture of us.

So.

It turns out that we got to the Main Street Station buffet 30 minutes before it was set to close at 10 p.m. The waitress asked if we were game to wolf down as much as we could cram in --- with only half an hour to do it.

The thing about buffets? It’s probably not a good idea to go in, feeling rushed.

As we heaped our plates full of food and got back to the table, we soon discovered that snacking on junk food all afternoon hadn’t helped our appetites.

Jen wound up eating nothing but fruit and drinking water. And while I managed a plate full of crab salad and pick at a plate full of chicken wings, my stomach started churning in protest when I went back for a second round of food.

Aaron, thankfully, managed to eat enough for the four of us.

He had plate after plate of food and even had Jen go back and fetch him some more.

The funny thing was that he’d asked her to get a cup of butter to go with the crab legs, but instead of cup, she filled a whole bowl. And by then, we were all too busy laughing our heads off, posing for silly pictures as Jen --- pumped up on too much sugar, I think --- insisted on taking pictures with each one of us.

There was one picture of Jen and me where she was trying to feed me some crab legs and I’m shrinking away. The look of horror on my face was completely genuine.

Flo couldn’t resist taking a picture of Aaron holding up his greasy hands, slathered with butter.

Looking back now, I think that was the best dinner we had --- not because of the food, but because of the way we were all feeling. Maybe it was because we were all well rested after spending all day sitting in a bus, sleeping and now being back in Vegas, where all the bright lights made it feel like the night was still young.

After we were basically kicked out, we walked out of the buffet and into the casino, where Jen grabbed a glass of white wine and we first began to see Aaron’s love of slots.

I totally understand how people become addicted. You sit in front of a slot, drop in a quarter and give the handle a good yank, hoping that maybe everything will line up and all these coins will start dropping out, making you feel like you’ve won a million bucks (when in reality, it’s probably no more than $5).

The slots here are actually pretty cool, ‘cause you can put in $1 and then, when you win, they tally up the credits and then print out a ticket for you that you can either use at another slot or you can redeem with the cashier.

I managed to win about $7.50, though, when I think about all the quarters I’d donated into the machines, I probably only broke even.

Flo managed to get a picture of me sitting at the slot, looking slightly pissed off as all my money dwindled down to $0 yet again.

Jen didn’t gamble at all. She didn’t have any yen for it, while the rest of us became fixated, staring at the machines, as if expecting them to yield all the answers to the universe.

You sit there with your hand clued to the crank, hoping you’d win something and thinking that maybe the next time, you’ll win everything back --- and then some.

At one point, I saw this guy with all these coins spilling out of the machine. Flo made fun of me because she said I stood there like Keanu Reeves in “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”, murmuring, “Whoa!” like it was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.

When we finally stumbled out, it still wasn’t particularly late. I hoped we didn’t miss the Fremont Street Experience, which was on the list of “Free Things to Do.”

The $70 million project is basically a pedestrian promenade flanked by 10 hotels in the centre of the downtown core, with a light and sound show overhead that features about 2 million lights.

When we first walked over there, a tribute band was playing with Ozzy Osborne and Kid Rock look-alikes. It was pretty crazy, but interesting all the same. We stopped for a minute while Aaron eyed the crowd for cute guys.

Not really sure when the light show was supposed to start, we ducked into the Golden Nugget, which promised tons of penny slots. But when we walked into the overwhelmingly smoky casino, we couldn’t find any.

At this point, I noticed a lot of people outside, staring up at the ceiling or craning their necks to stare at something. I figured the show must have started and dragged everyone back out again to watch as graphics were displayed above us and loud music boomed from the speaker system.

It wasn’t really what I was expecting, but I guess that I’d reached a point where I was getting tired and wanted to get back to the hotel so I could actually stretch out and sleep. (Though, you’d think that because we’d been sleeping all day on the bus, I wouldn’t be sleepy anymore. But then again, you’d be underestimating how much I adore sleeping.)

I agreed to walk with the other three all the way down the promenade to see what was at the end. But all we found was a Walgreen’s, which Aaron insisted on checking out. He suggested that we buy some water now. Jen reasoned that it’d make more sense to buy it here, since we were taking a cab back to the hotel, anyway.

When we got to a more crowded area, I was a little unsure how to hail a cab. None of us had done it before because we were all used to either taking the TTC or driving ourselves everywhere back home.

But as this one cab dropped off a couple, the driver noticed us standing around uncertainly and waved us over.

Las Vegas at night is an interesting place. It’s almost enough just to sit in a moving car and watch the streets go by.

By the time we got back to our hotel and showered and got ready for bed, it was late. We lay in the dark for a bit, just talking.

Aaron told Jen she could have the bed to herself the next night, which she was really happy about.