Notes From the Road: Giant Penises
10:59am. Leaving Kodachrome Basin State Park, UT. Yesterday was a whole day of driving from the Grand Canyon to Kodachrome, home of petrified sandstone pipes shaped like giant penises. National Geographic Society named this place after the way the sandstone cliffs and other formations take on vivid colors depending on the sun.
We passed the Vermilion Cliffs, a long plateau of red rock with Paria Canyon on the other side. The valley we drove through had solid fields of orange wildflowers. At first I thought they were huge patches of bare orange dirt where for some reason the grass didn't want to grow. We stopped at an overlook to pee and elderly Navajo women were selling their handicrafts. Reminded me of the native tribes in China and Borneo. Somehow in a foreign country you lose all the prejudices you have in the U.S. It would be interesting to research more about the native Americans since all we got in school was legend and stereotypes. You don't really learn about who they are or what issues they face today, even though there's all this land and all these people affected by a long history and government policies that evolved from it. And you find similarities in the way native tribes are treated in other countries as well, issues of sovereignty and right to land and preservation of customs.
We hiked an 18-mile loop into the Grand Canyon, and Pam went from the rim to the river and back. The math goes: Patrick and Justina hiked 18 miles in 8.5 hours, while Pam hiked probably 25 miles in 6.5 hours.
It's a strange transformation that happens in your sensibilities when you descend into the canyon and it stops becoming this postcard legend and starts feeling like sandstone rocks and rivers and eroded canyons and desert ecosystems and prickly pear cacti. It wasn't quite the feeling of timelessness that I felt backpacking through the redwoods but I did feel this sense of incomprehensible wonder at the geological marvel that it is. All of this area is that way - how did the Vermilion Cliffs happen? Why is the Grand Canyon so huge when other things around it are much smaller? The sheer scale of all these formations both geologically and temporally is stunning and humbling. And the weird penis rocks at Kodachrome and the hoodoos and Bryce and the sheer stepped buttes and plateaus and Escalante and petrified sandstone dunes of Red Rock Canyon. The wildflowers are all out in the Grand Canyon, lots of cactus flowers, orange flowers a la Vermilion, yellow composites and bluebonnets.
We camped at around 7,000 feet - freezing! I offered to trade my sleeping bag for Pam's since hers was really light and we made her camp out after she was pushing for the Motel 6. I was miserable in her sleeping bag even with the giant stone penis behind our campsite, and she woke up in a bad mood...until we got to the visitor's center in Escalante, UT. "He's the best thing that's happened to me all morning! I could give up coffee, alcohol, R-rated movies," she said of the 21-year-old Mormon park ranger who helped us.
So far Mormon country ain't too friendly and there's an air of judgmentalisticnessism everywhere we go. When we asked the woman at the post office where we could get coffee, she said, "Well, there's a lady down the street who does make those kind of things." But the place across the road had Polygamy Porter and a matching deck of cards. Almost bought those cards.
We passed the Vermilion Cliffs, a long plateau of red rock with Paria Canyon on the other side. The valley we drove through had solid fields of orange wildflowers. At first I thought they were huge patches of bare orange dirt where for some reason the grass didn't want to grow. We stopped at an overlook to pee and elderly Navajo women were selling their handicrafts. Reminded me of the native tribes in China and Borneo. Somehow in a foreign country you lose all the prejudices you have in the U.S. It would be interesting to research more about the native Americans since all we got in school was legend and stereotypes. You don't really learn about who they are or what issues they face today, even though there's all this land and all these people affected by a long history and government policies that evolved from it. And you find similarities in the way native tribes are treated in other countries as well, issues of sovereignty and right to land and preservation of customs.
We hiked an 18-mile loop into the Grand Canyon, and Pam went from the rim to the river and back. The math goes: Patrick and Justina hiked 18 miles in 8.5 hours, while Pam hiked probably 25 miles in 6.5 hours.
It's a strange transformation that happens in your sensibilities when you descend into the canyon and it stops becoming this postcard legend and starts feeling like sandstone rocks and rivers and eroded canyons and desert ecosystems and prickly pear cacti. It wasn't quite the feeling of timelessness that I felt backpacking through the redwoods but I did feel this sense of incomprehensible wonder at the geological marvel that it is. All of this area is that way - how did the Vermilion Cliffs happen? Why is the Grand Canyon so huge when other things around it are much smaller? The sheer scale of all these formations both geologically and temporally is stunning and humbling. And the weird penis rocks at Kodachrome and the hoodoos and Bryce and the sheer stepped buttes and plateaus and Escalante and petrified sandstone dunes of Red Rock Canyon. The wildflowers are all out in the Grand Canyon, lots of cactus flowers, orange flowers a la Vermilion, yellow composites and bluebonnets.
We camped at around 7,000 feet - freezing! I offered to trade my sleeping bag for Pam's since hers was really light and we made her camp out after she was pushing for the Motel 6. I was miserable in her sleeping bag even with the giant stone penis behind our campsite, and she woke up in a bad mood...until we got to the visitor's center in Escalante, UT. "He's the best thing that's happened to me all morning! I could give up coffee, alcohol, R-rated movies," she said of the 21-year-old Mormon park ranger who helped us.
So far Mormon country ain't too friendly and there's an air of judgmentalisticnessism everywhere we go. When we asked the woman at the post office where we could get coffee, she said, "Well, there's a lady down the street who does make those kind of things." But the place across the road had Polygamy Porter and a matching deck of cards. Almost bought those cards.
posted by Justina at 11:21 AM
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