Day 17

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Crosby Stirs Jacobs who Yelps

 

Thursday 17th May 2007

 

What frustration!  This Super 8 provides free high speed Internet Access, like all the others, providing a user name and password that one is supposed to supply on launching one’s browser.  Unfortunately, on doing so, all we get is a 404 page.  No amount of changing set-ups, setting up new user accounts, changing security options, generally frigging about with Microsoft’s obscurities has helped one iota.  And the owner of this motel, one David Crosby, is aware of the problem but doesn’t know how it should be resolved.  Apparently one of his customers told him that you had to go into computer setup or something to make it ask for user name and password but Dave doesn’t know the exact details.  Neither do I and I haven’t been able to guess them, especially as I’m reluctant to change things that may prevent me from using the computer the way I want to ever after.  We are not sure if we said in our latest blog but the last Super 8 we stayed at a) forgot to tell us that they had laundry facilities which would have been good given the amount of carrier bags full of washing we now have and b) did not manage to provide breakfast for a significant number of people.  Luckily we arrived to find the last slices of bread for toast, but had to pester more than once for spoons for cereal and butter for toast.  There were lots of people after us who found nothing and just left the motel, or who found nothing and pestered the reception until something was delivered.   Mary also received an email asking us to rate our stay at Green River – can we remember which motel that was out of the 19 we have stayed at so far????

 

Dave’s a nice guy though (Super 8 at Kanab)… On our arrival we found a note on the check in desk that said “ Sorry I’m not here.  Gone to the pool at the back to kool off.  If you want some help, give a yelp.  Dave.”  So we went round the back and found Dave cleaning his pool, surrounded by sprinklers sprinkling his grass.  He quickly followed us back to the check in desk and efficiently checked us in.  He is the proprietor of this franchised motel.  Thinking back, I think this is the first time we’ve been checked in by the owner since we started using these franchised motels.  Usually the owner has been in the background or may have  made an appearance in the morning.  Only at the smallest, non-franchised joints have we been met by the proprietor before. The owner of the motel  in Sioux Falls owned several other facilities, such as log cabins at Spearfish Canyon and the America’s Best Value Inn at Rapid City, which as not part of the same loyalty scheme.

 

The motel is in a small town (or City as it would have it) called Kanab, just back inside Utah, which was the first place we came to with a Super 8 after leaving the Grand Canyon again, this time from the North Rim, via Arizona 67 and US 89A.  We’d stopped off in Fredonia, just inside Arizona to buy a bottle of wine, just in case we couldn’t get any as we were heading back into Utah,  but as luck would have it, we were able to drink Chianti with our Italian at Amici’s in Kanab.  Mary thought our waitress was Amish, based on her footwear and black stockings, but she then thought that if she was Amish would she have been allowed to work in a bar selling booze?  I think she was just a member of the Italian family wearing practical, if ugly, shoes – but who knows?

 

The journeys to and from the North Rim were much better than yesterday’s to and from the South Rim.  I think this was mainly because we started yesterday’s journey from Flagstaff, which was already 7,000 feet above sea level, so was already in the heavily wooded, temperate mountain zone, and ended the journey in the dark, which is never very interesting scenically, although the sunset was just amazing.  A pity that the camera did not do it justice.

 

Today, we started from Page, a town only established in 1957, and began with a minor detour (which cost us $15 which I felt was steep, but then I was eager to get off to pastures new, so probably missed some of the treasures it had to offer) via the Glen Canyon Dam and the Waheap Marina on Powell Lake.  We again encountered the Navajo markets, which Mary would have liked to have spent lots of money at, but due to the fact that we will probably have to pay lots of money for excess baggage she deferred to my diminishing bank account, and the fact that most of what was on offer would probably remain in a jewellery box, somewhere, never worn by those for whom it was purchased.  We also encountered a nice couple who were doing a similar tour in a different order.  He hailed from Jamaica, though by now he has completely lost his Jamaican accent, sounding completely American.  We took pictures for each other and later bumped into them at the North Rim.  This scenic viewpoint was at an elevation of a mere 4,000 feet or so, on the descent down a vermillion cliff into the Marble Canyon.  Our journey to the North Rim took us up another 5,000 feet, through varying terrain.  Most of it was through the Marble Canyon, a broad valley flanked by red sandstone cliffs that give the hamlet of Vermillion Cliffs its name.  Through the middle of this broad valley flows the quiet Colorado River, deep green in colour, in its own Glen Canyon. No doubt its flow is somewhat subdued by the dam at Page, but it is still a powerful force in its own right.

 

We crossed the Colorado at Navajo Bridge, which is 5 miles down river of Lee’s Ferry, the first regular crossing of the Colorado to serve pilgrims in the 19th Century, apparently known as the Honeymoon Ferry as Mormons had to use it so that they could get their marriages sanctified at the Mormon Temple at St George.  (Mary is party to various blogs on AOL and, apparently, although Mormons get married in their local churches, they then need to go to a Mormon Temple to be tied to their partners.  They do not have the vows of ‘death till us part’, but something like for ‘ever and eternity’, which has to be sanctified at a Temple.)  Navajo Bridge was built in 1929 and was, at the time, the largest steel arch bridge in the world, and finally provided a permanent through route between Arizona and Utah, reducing the need for the Lees Ferry. A second bridge was built in the 1990s to cope with the heavier transport that was now wending its way around the countryside.  The second bridge was built in exactly the same style.  The same methods were used, apart from the more sparing use of explosives, so they form an artistically satisfying pair.  The accompanying Visitors’ Center was quite aesthetically pleasing too: it was low built, of roughly hewn stone with crenellations, suggesting a frontier fortress, thus blending into the countryside because it lacked straight lines, while suggesting the history of the West.  We spent some time there, taking photos of and from the original bridge, using the organically composting toilets and watching adverts for videos of local attractions.

 

We were now on the “Fredonia side” of the Colorado, as opposed to the “Flagstaff side” where we had been yesterday.  Our path continued across the broad valley bottom and then took us up onto the Colorado Plateau and again into the Kaibab National Forest, up to about 9,000 feet above sea level.  The surroundings changed from flat, sagebrush covered semi-desert to hilly juniper and pine forest, then to alpine meadow and pine forest.  Up there, we went through about 13 miles of recently burnt forest: mile after mile of blackened and dead trees, still upright but densely packed and dead.  At their feet were fresh green sprouts of grass, spruce trees and other plants. There was also evidence of intervention, as lots of trees close to the road had been felled.  As for the silver birches that had also been caught in the fires, it was difficult to tell whether they were still alive or not: were they just late coming into leaf or were they dead? – they were still silver-barked but had no signs of buds or leaves.

 

After a journey of nearly 100 miles, we re-entered the National Park and then drove a further 30-odd miles to the North Rim, where we parked and set out for the Visitors Centre.  Mary was only wearing her flip flops (as there had been no notices to suggest that there was anything here other than visitors services) , so when we then came upon the path to the Bright Angel scenic viewpoint, she declined to accompany me for safety reasons, which ultimately proved to be a sensible decision due to the vertiginous nature of the surroundings. I, myself, being somewhat out of breath by the time I met up with Mary again. was in full agreement with her decision. On finding Mary after my walk, she  was engaged in conversation with Bud and Mary from Phoenix.  They were there celebrating 37 years of marriage.  Mary continues the narrative.

 

Bud had been in the Navy and had spent some time in New York, but had then gone to Phoenix some 40 years ago, so one would assume that he had met his wife, Mary, there and married and settled down. They now had 2 children and 2 grandchildren, and by their own admission were home birds, so for them this trip was something rather special and out of the ordinary.  Bud had been involved in electrics and had done work at the Glen Canyon Dam and knew about the working of electrics and water and how it got from one place in the Canyon to others. This was demonstrated when some guy made a comment to him and he was able to explain at great length how it all worked.  The guy who posed this question was also proud of the fact that hisdigital camera allowed him to take 200 shots a day and that he could download them at the end of each day, so he could take the same amount the next day.  I thought it best to keep quiet as my camera currently has around 3000 pictures on it (but then it is a 2 gb SD card J ).