“And the night shall be filled with music….And the cares that infest the day….Shall fold their tents like the Arabs….And as silently steal away.”---Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“We’re off to the Coxville Zoo….To see the elephant and big kangaroo.”---Lieuen Adkins
The Vernal Equinox serves notice that Summer is icumen in, galloping towards us on the backs of perytons, waving its cheery salutations, promising much, demanding little. It’s time to turn our appointment books to June, pull out the exotic maps of Vacationland and start to fill in the little squares. The days of vacation begin, after all, in the planning, so the sooner the better. Not to mention, all those hotel rooms in Moab and Estes Park and Jackson Hole are filling up fast with pilgrims early to the task, while the better campgrounds are practically full.
Where will we go this year? Is it off to the brisk mornings of Maine to inspect the wonders of Acadia? To the tall canyons of Zion to follow the path of the Virgin River? Or perhaps to the serene Hoh rainforest of western Washington on the cusp of the Pacific, where celestial sights and smells transport us to another dimension? There is no end to the list of possibilities, no limit to the variety of offerings. We have but to spin the wheel and follow our dreams.
The Flying Pie, well aware that there are legions of rookies unpracticed at long-distance travel, is eager to help. First of all, the critical matter of expenses. Anywhere we send you is available for ten or twelve days at less than $5000, which includes everything….airplane tickets for two, a standard rental car (don’t get a compact in the mountains), hotel rooms, park fees, meals, the whole enchilada. You will not be required to fly on Muckbucket Airlines, sleep on a futon in a bacteria-ridden hostel or dine at Arby’s. This does not allow you to buy 100 t-shirts which read “I HIKED the HALF DOME parking lot.” Remember---self-discipline is a critical virtue. That settled, let’s be on our way.
New Grand Canyon Skywalk, West Rim, not far from Hoover Dam. No, Nana---it won’t fall down. It really won't.
Where Am I Going?
If you are a Senior Citizen, and who isn’t, you can buy a lifetime pass to the national parks for a mere $80, a recent increase, but still a nice deal. Any U.S. citizen or permanent resident over 62 is eligible. This will enable you and anyone in your vehicle, Muslim terrorists excluded, to enter any and all NPs for the balance of your existence or until you begin painting funny mustaches on the presidents at Mount Rushmore. Nobody likes a wiseguy. If you want to know why the National Parks, it’s because they have all the best stuff. You just can’t find dependable geysers at Six Flags Over Omaha.
For customer convenience, many of the big parks have been located out west. A person with endless time to spend can carom from one park to another without taking too long or using exorbitant amounts of politically incorrect gasoline. Obviously, it’s cheaper to stay at a campground, but also more boring unless you get to park next to the Clanghonk family, six brawling kids, eight giant dogs and an 80ish nudist grandfather with a 1/2 inch penis he finds necessary to parade daily through the woodlands. At times like this, the values of boredom quickly become apparent.
Personally, we like hotel rooms, where after a long day of hiking you can depend on a nice shower, air-conditioning and a comfortable bed. Nearby, there will be an assortment of decent restaurants, perhaps a shop or two worth visiting, maybe a moviehouse. Siobhan likes to play miniature golf, although not as much since we told her it was unpolitic to yell “fore!” and hit the ball as far as she liked. Some towns have music venues and little theater companies. Most important of all, there is always barbecue. If you’d like to start out with a choice that can’t miss, try these:
The Big Four
Those of us who do not enjoy exploring every cathedral, art gallery and birthplace of a semi-famous bumpkin once residing there, have developed our own evaluation systems for a particular town’s visiting period. Assuming one is not there for some reason other than pure tourism, New Orleans is a two-day town, as are San Antonio and Kansas City. This is, of course, much better than being a one-day town like Portland and vastly superior to being a zero-day town like Houston, Baltimore or Buffalo. Zero-day towns, it has been firmly established in court, have no redeeming social value. The Big Four parks we’re sending you to are five-day places at a minimum, and much more for inveterate hikers and rock climbers. Without further delay, the National Parks which you absolutely must visit are Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone and Glacier. All of them are like fairylands, fantastically beautiful and impossible to duplicate. We have to begin somewhere, so let’s start with the Big Kahuna.
Grand Canyon National Park is located in northern Arizona, about five hours driving time from Las Vegas and an hour and a half from Flagstaff, which has a limited number of flights. If you drive there from Vegas, you will pass by the imposing Hoover Dam, which you may want to check out. If you drive from Flagstaff, you will pass by the Chapel of the Holy Dove, which you won’t.
John Wesley Powell once said, “The Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are taxed beyond their powers in attempting to portray its features. Language and illustration combined must fail.” What John Wesley was telling us is, you have to go there, see it, perhaps descend a small distance down into the canyon to appreciate it. There is nothing like it anywhere. Some people have gone so far as to call their visit “a life-altering experience.” Bill and Siobhan would not got that far, although their mule trip to the bottom in 107-degree temperatures almost was. If you die there or never make it out, that would qualify as life-altering, right?
There are several trails down into the Grand Canyon. Everyone should start with the Bright Angel Trail, which is reasonably wide and not unduly steep. A prettier alternative is the South Kaibab Trail, narrower, with a steeper grade. For visitors not especially fit, there is a Rim Trail, which is flat and easy to negotiate. It gets light very early in the Arizona summer, so hikes should start at seven or eight a.m. and thus be completed before the early afternoon showers set in.
There are places to stay in the park if you reserve far ahead of time, and several hotels in the nearby mini-town of Tusayan. When we didn’t stay inside the park, we hoteled at Williams, Arizona, about an hour’s drive down the road, which had plenty of rooms under $100 a night. Williams is a colorful little town with an array of motels, restaurants and shops. The kids go nuts over the nightly gunfights on the main drag, preceded by a brief parade announcing the event by the tiny local band. The cowboys staging the gunfight spend their daytime hours traveling to and from the Canyon on the Grand Canyon Railway, which operates out of Williams. Don’t be tempted, it takes two hours and fifteen minutes to get there and another 2:15 back, a total of 2 1/2 hours more than driving. More time to be staring out at the abyss, contemplating your meager place in the universe.
An extra added attraction for your Williams visit: the town is a mere 60 miles from the vortexes, spas and crystal-worshippers of lovely Sedona. You can recover from your Grand Canyon exertions with a pricey massage at the Amara spa downtown and get your fortune told. Make sure to tell the swami that tips will only be proffered for optimistic fortunes. You’ll be doing this only once, after all, you might as well have a pleasant experience.
Yellowstone
“Be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray….or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea….you’re off to Great Places!….Today is your day!….Your mountain is waiting….So get on your way.”---Dr. Seuss
You can drive from Billings, Montana to Yellowstone National Park in 90 minutes on a good day, the problem being it is not always easy to get to Billings, Montana. Nor is it cheap. Flights to Salt Lake City are far more frequent and much less expensive, though the drive is five hours long. This option, however, presents you with the once-in-a-lfetime opportunity to overnight in lovely Pocatello, Idaho and breakfast at Butterburr’s comfort food restaurant, where the meals are mammoth and divine. When you go to Butterburr’s, you will be required to sign a legal document promising you will not dine there again within 72 hours as a safety measure for the protection of your gastrointestinal system. Oh, and Siobhan wants you to know the drinking water in Pocatello is the best in the universe.
If you don’t stay in the park, the only sensible option is West Yellowstone, Montana, just next door, a bright little town filled with hotels, restaurants, gear shops, souvenir stores, an Imax palace and a very good community theater, which rotates plays nightly. To the north of the park is a second possibility, Gardner, Montana, which our old pal Michael O’Hara Garcia would describe as a cemetery with lights. Greta Garbo, who famously remarked, “I want to be alone,” would love the vibe in Gardner. There’s so little action in town you start hoping a mugger will show up to relieve the monotony. Gardner is just down the road from Mammoth Hot Springs, however, and is a launching spot for the rafting caravans which bounce---literally---down the nearby Yellowstone River. Sepulcher Mountain, a terrific hiking location, is also nearby. If you want to be guaranteed a good night’s sleep after an exhausting day of rafting or hiking, Gardner might be the place for you. There will be no fire trucks rocketing through the streets at all hours because there are few fires, only a couple of rickety trucks and almost no streets.
Everybody goes to Yellowstone to see the geysers, and they’re everywhere. The Big Daddy of geysers, of course, is Old Faithful, not far from West Yellowstone, which conveniently erupts on schedule. Well….most of the time. Nearby is a walkway to several other less predictable geysers, which erupt when they get around to it. One of them went off just as I entered the blast area, a scary moment. I expected to be boiled in hot liquid but the water which landed on me was cold, the result of CO2-bubbles driving the eruption rather than steam from the proximity of magma.
Not to be missed in the same general area, the Midway Geyser Basin, is the beautiful multi-colored Grand Prismatic Spring, the largest hot spring in the United States and third-largest in the world. The exceptional array of colors surrounding the spring are the result of microbial mats around the edges of the mineral-rich water. The mats produce colors ranging from green to red, the amount of color depending on the ratio of chlorophyll to carotenoids, and on the temperature gradient in the runoff. The GPS is 160-370 feet deep. It’s also 160 degrees Fahrenheit, so don’t fall off that narrow boardwalk. Spoiled theme-park vacationers often assume some magical force will protect them from all harm during visits to the rugged National Park System. Sorry, folks, you’re on your own. If little Willy falls into the hot spring, well, you’ve heard the expression, “He’s toast.” Well, Willy really is toast.
Yellowstone is famous for its wide variety of animal life. The critters are everywhere. You may not see a wolf but the broad Hayden Valley boasts a bison herd of hundreds, many of which walk right up on the roadway and sniff your car. Or you, if you’re not careful. Most of the wolves are in the Lamar Valley in the northeastern part of the park, along with grizzlies, bald eagles, deer and coyotes. Park rangers select several spots near the roadways to feed elk and other animals, thus providing photo opportunities (and traffic jams) for visitors.
Jackson Hole in the foreground, fronting the Tetons.
The Tetons
Yellowstone is so close to the the Grand Tetons a visitor is almost obliged to package the two together. Turning south at the West Thumb Geyser Basin, Jackson Hole is a mere hour and a half away, not counting the time you’ll stop to photograph the mountains on the way. Jackson is a ritzy western town with expensive hotels, best to stick with some place on the outskirts. The awesome Granary restaurant in the hills overlooking town is a must-see destination, even if it’s just for a drink at the bar while surveying the spectacular scenery.
One caveat: the mountains make their own weather here, some of it surly and sudden, so take a change of clothes while hiking. We practically drowned returning from a 4-hour outing in the early afternoon, then nearly froze in the aftermath. The change of clothes probably saved us from hypothermia. Sometimes, you just can’t find an Uber when you need one.
One of the more popular trails is to Inspiration Point, which starts at Jenny Lake, zips up one thousand feet very quickly and then tapers off. Another is the Cascade Canyon hike, where bear sightings are a possibility. Due to the erratic summer weather, all hikes are best started in early morning.
There is plenty to do in Jackson Hole, not much of it cheap. Spend the bulk of your vacation in Yellowstone and give the Tetons a couple of days on your way back to the airport. Your pocketbook will say muchas gracias.
Next Week: We’ll continue our travelogue with visits to the other half of the Big Four, Yosemite and Glacier national parks, and take a look at a few of the lesser---but not much lesser---opportunities. Until then, remember the wise words of your old pal, Dr. Seuss:
“You have brains in your head….You have feet in your shoes….You can steer yourself any direction you choose….You’re on your own, and you know what you know….and YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go!”
That’s all, folks….
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