The Grand Canyon to Sedona

Sunrise is going to occur at 5:30 a.m., so we awaken early and set out for the rim.  I do my Tai Chi in the darkness, and it is cool and very quiet at this time of morning.  And I want to run very much, so we walk to the path and I am in my running clothes.  On the way, we see this herd of elk, wandering along the railroad tracks.

Other people have gathered to watch he sunrise, too, and some of them are wrapped in blankets and wearing slippers.  It reminds me of the beach, where people will get up so early to see such a simple event, wrapped in the blankets they slept in.

Sunrise.  And while the world is still aglow, I take off on one of my most memorable runs, along this path.  And I keep thinking, That's the Grand Canyon, right there!  I go so far that there are no more buildings, and I reluctantly start to head back to the Lodge.

It is Sunday morning and we saw a sign earlier indicating there would be a non-denominational worship service near the Bright Angel trail, so after I shower and change we walk back out to the rim.  We see something unusual on the way:  a group of perhaps a dozen housekeepers, preparing to clean rooms, out stretching, as if they were getting ready for an aerobics class.  We continue to the rim and discover two young men and a young woman, standing behind a little cross, passing out songbooks.

They are divinity students and housekeepers, it turns out, and there is only a handful of us gathered to worship; I don't know any of the songs, accompanied on guitar by one of the young men.  The songbook indicates that this program has been going on since 1956, and there is a great quote by John Muir in the front, from a letter he wrote Mrs. Ezra Carr in 1871 from Upper Yosemite Falls, where we had been not too long ago.

"In the afternoon I came up to the mountain here

with a blanket and a piece of bread to spend the night in

prayer among the spouts of this fall;

but what can I say more than wish again that you might

expose your soul to the rays of this heaven."

So that is my wish for the readers of this blog:  come visit this place before you leave this world!

We have brunch at the El Tovar, one of the oldest hotels here, dark log interiors and elk head mounted on the walls; here is the view from the window:

Along the top of the covered porch these words are inscribed:

"Dreams of mountains as in their sleep

They brood on things eternal."

Later, we walk down the trail that the mules (which we never see, except in a corral later in the day) take to the bottom - a hair-raising ride to imagine! - and pass through this tunnel in the rock.

We can't be late for the train - they tell us the only other way to get back to Williams (the train is completely booked, the hotels are completely booked) is a $150 taxi ride - so we gather at the old Depot, ca. 1910, to wait for Kokopelli to take us back to Williams.

We had more entertainment on the train ride back.  This old fellow had played in some rock and roll bands back in the day, and he quizzed us on some old songs from the 60s.  I think I was the only one who recognized Eric Clapton, Jim Morrison, and Eric Burden.  And I even knew that one-hit wonder by the Box Tops:

"I don't care how much money I gotta spend
Got to get back to my baby again
Lonely days are gone, I'm a-goin' home
My baby, just-a wrote me a letter."

So I guess that made me the oldest guy on the train.  Other than our guitarist, who was very good and very fast, and even played a little Doc Watson for us.  And then we heard a commotion - train robbers! (as we had been promised), masked and brandishing six-shooters and saying they were looking for wives, wives who could cook.  "Can you cook!??" they would demand, getting up in every woman's face.  And  nobody could.

It began to rain on the way back to Williams, so we hurried out to our little Mini, faithfully awaiting us in the parking space into which we had backed so many hours ago.  The drive to Sedona was not a long one, but it was getting dark and we were on a very narrow, winding road, hairpin curves everywhere.  We saw glimpses of fantastic rock formations all around us on this road,which we were looking forward to seeing by morning light.  And it was still raining, the beginning of the monsoons which we understand come along this time of year in this part of Arizona, when we arrived at the very nice Arroyo Pinion hotel. 

Williams to the Grand Canyon

Today we boarded the Grand Canyon Railway, riding in one of the dome cars.  Our car is named Kokopelli, a fertility god and a trickster.

The train ride is two hours long, but we are well-entertained by musicians both to and from our destination, great guitarists and comedians, both of them. 

Again there are many nationalities all around us; a young couple from London are directly across from us.  We roll through cattle ranches and then into higher terrain:  Ponderosa pine, pinion pines, juniper.

I remember listening when I was a boy to a recording my Dad had of the Grand Canyon Suite by Ferde Grofé, and a little search on the internet convinces me that perhaps it was this one, and this cover I may have gazed at while I listened.

I can't even remember very much of the music - perhaps there was the clopping of hooves from the mules as they descend the trail?  Instead, I keep hearing that old Roy Rogers-Dale Evans song:

Happy trails to you,
Until we meet again.
Happy trails to you,
Keep smiling until then.

 When we arrived at the Depot, we immediately boarded shuttle buses for a tour of all the best vista points:  Mojave Point, Hopi Point, and Trail Views Point where all the trails converge below us.  We took so many photos here that we are starting to run out of room; I noted in my little journal, "My camera is too small!"

Overhead we see large birds flying - California condors, which have built nests below us in the cliffs.  It is a scary place, too, if you are a little acrophobic; some folks like to stand right on the very edge, or perch on the stone walls along the walkway and dangle their feet, which frightened me more than looking over the edge did.

The Colorado river can be seen way down below us in the dizzying distance, where the Havasupai live - "the people of the blue-green waters."  Their agriculture was based on "the three sister":  corn, beans, and squash, often planted in the same hole and helping one another grow (the beans climbed up the corn-stalk, the squash shaded the ground).  In the distance is a flat mesa called Wotan and a pyramid called Vishnu.  What an ancient place this is!  Every foot we descend at one point represents 400,000 years.  The trail along the South Rim passes right behind the big hotels there, and people are simply walking back and forth, taking photo after photo, trying to fit all this in their cameras.  We see this inscribed in the wall of an old stone building.

Evening comes and we are still walking here, marveling at the earth and its manifold riches.

We are staying at the Maswik Lodge - Maswik is a Hopi Kachina, or spirit, who is said to guard the Grand Canyon.  We sleep soundly!

Barstow to Williams

That old Nat King Cole song begins to wander through my mind as we set out for Williams, Arizona, on the famous Route 66.

If you ever plan to motor west,
Travel my way, take the highway, that's the best.
Get your kicks on Route 66.

Route 66 has kind of disappeared under I-40, but in some places you can still find it, meandering along as Cole describes in his song:

And Oklahoma City looks mighty pretty, you'll see...
Amarillo...
Gallup, New Mexico,
Flagstaff, Arizona,
Don't forget Winona,
Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino.

We indeed we passed through most of those places!  We would get off on the old road and gaze at abandoned gas stations, and dodge the potholes, while traffic zoomed by on I-40.  In one place east of Barstow we got onto a section that was absolutely the worst stretch of bad road I have ever driven, so bad that we had to drive on the gravel shoulder.  I read on-line that this was the result of seasonal flooding a year or two ago.

Other sections are in good repair, especially near Hackberry, Peach Springs, and Seligman.  Merchants here have capitalized on the road's reputation, and there are plenty of unusual statues and old gas stations to enjoy.  True Americana in all its cheesy glory!

We even saw a series of iconic "Burma Shave" signs at one point along this Mother Road:

THIRTY DAYS

HATH SEPTEMBER

APRIL, JUNE

AND THE SPEED OFFENDER

Storms are gathering on the horizon as we enter Williams, a pretty little city and the gateway to the Grand Canyon.  We have been looking forward to our next day for a long time!  Martha has arranged for us to stay at the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel tonight, and then take the Grand Canyon Railway the next day; we will stay at the Maswik Lodge close to the South Rim as part of this package deal.

The storms never materialize, and we walk around Williams in the dark, listening to live music at an outdoor cafe.  This is a bustling little city, and filled (once again) with many people from other countries, especially Germans, it seems.  But the Railway and its spacious hotel are at the center of all the activity, even this bottle of wine at the Grand Depot Cafe.

San Simeon to Barstow

This morning we were scheduled to tour Hearst Castle, but I knew I had time for a short run along the Pacific Ocean.  The sun was just beginning to burn through the fog, and below the bluffs I could hear the surf crashing; I turned at a parking overlook, walked out to the edge, and watched the surf coming and going on the rocks below before returning.

There were coastal live oaks all along the driveway to this castle, often called the Biltmore House of the west coast, and we climbed into the shuttle bus and listened to (of all people) Alex Trebec on a recorded narrative.  William Randolph Hearst had camped on this piece of coastal property high above the ocean as a boy, and as he grew older he decided that camping was no longer as comfortable for him as it used to be, so he decided to build this "little place," which turned into a 90,000 SF castle.  He named it "La Cuesta Encantada" ("The Enchanted Hill"), but usually called it "the ranch."  He kept exotic animals in the pastures here, and some zebra still remain; Martha says she saw them, way off in the distance. 

I did not take this beautiful photo - it is a famous print on display in the Visitor Center - but it gives some perspective of this castle on a hill.

It is hard to resist taking photographs; there is beauty everywhere in the wide terraces and gardens, the Spanish-style architecture, and this chapel in the very center.

Hearst's architect was almost as interesting as he was - a 4'-8" woman named Julia Morgan, the first female architect licensed in the State of California, and famously shy (there are virtually no photos of her).  The architectural details are lovely to behold.  The house also happens to be the inspiration for Xanadu in Orson Welles's classic movie, Citizen Kane (although it was not filmed here).

He was a collector, and sculptures from every era are everywhere, like these ancient Egyptian figures.   And, more typically, this.

Hearst snubbed his nose at High Society.  He lived here with his mistress while his wife lived in New York, an arrangement which all parties found amicable.  Famous movie stars were invited here, and we saw the private theater where he showed movies to his guests, many of whom were on the screen in front of them.  The Roman Pool is sumptuous:

Hearst always remained in some way a kind of down-to-earth person; the fancy dining room table was set with Blue Willow, paper napkins, and mustard and ketchup in their original containers, which reminded him of camping on this hill as a boy.

What a small world it is, though.  Some young women on the shuttle bus back down to the Visitor Center noticed my "Asheville" shirt and said that they went to running camp in Brevard, coached by the legendary Roy Benson, who used to write for Running Journal.

After we leave Xanadu - I mean Hearst Castle - we start heading eastward for the first time, back towards Highlands.  We climb away from the coast and the cool temperatures disappear within 30 minutes; we are in 103-degree heat again.  We travel through some hot, flat country then, a let-down after the Pacific Coast Highway, and see these surprising pump jacks nodding up and down along the road, like some strange prehistoric creatures out here in the middle of nowhere; it turns out this is the Lost Hills Oil Field.

Over another long pass we motor, dotted with windmills again.  Why do they always have three blades, like the symbol of a Mercedes?  I actually read about this (while Martha was driving) and discovered that two is more efficient but causes something called "yaw chatter."

We turned on the TV in our motel room in Barstow, and there was even more yaw chatter - little bits and pieces of the Republican and Democratic conventions have followed us along on our journey, and we find ourselves listening to Hillary's acceptance speech at the end of another long day.

Napa to San Simeon

My friend Benita had reminded me that Mark Twain once said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco."  We were reminded of this as we drove south along San Francisco Bay, the shining Pacific Ocean off to the west, bundled up against the fog.  When we crossed the famous Golden Gate Bridge - the second of two great suspension bridges on this journey across America - we paused to take this photo on the other side.

Yes, it was completely fogged-in (as it often is, we understand), and all we could see were glimpses of the tall golden towers disappearing above us in the fog, and here its faint shape from the opposite shore.  When we came off the bridge, we were instantly in city traffic, and as the fog began to lift we made our way to Mini of San Francisco, located surprisingly in the heart of the downtown area with some other car dealerships.  They treated us well while we waited for the oil change I had set up weeks ahead of time.  (Minis are supposed to go 15,000 miles between oil changes, but we don't like to wait that long; we thought that after nearly 5,000 miles of hard driving, it was time.)

That Scott McKenzie ode to Flower Power from the 60s unaccountably begins going through my mind:

If you're going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
If you're going to San Francisco
You're gonna meet some gentle people there

What a tangle of traffic we were in once again!  We caught a glimpse of pretty neighborhoods and those famous steep hills, and there were people everywhere, not just driving but riding bicycles, pedestrians out in the middle of the road.  One black vehicle rocketed past us as if he had robbed a bank.  And apparently there is a continual freeway between San Francisco and Los Angeles.  But when we reached Carmel-by-the-Sea, we got off the freeway onto the Pacific Coast Highway, an unparalleled driving experience, even more beautiful than the drive into Yosemite.  Banks of fog were rolling in off the ocean, which we could see from time to time below us.

This is a gorgeous coastline, fog and sunlight playing with each other.  There were some very expensive Spanish-tile houses perched on the cliffs above and below us, and in places we could see big grassy fields, cattle grazing, as I picture it might be along the coast of Britain.  These are the Santa Lucia Mountains, coming down to meet the sea.  Even though it was very chilly, we had the top down - there was no other way to drive this road!  We could smell pungent redwoods all around, like oak barrels.  Hawks were floating overhead, perhaps nesting in the cliffs.  We came into Big Sur and stopped for awhile to stroll in some out-of-the-way place where time seemed to have stopped.  No cellphone service or internet and nobody seemed to mind.  This little memorial to an unknown surfer named Jay Moriarty was scrawled on the rear window of a car.  Yes, you have to appreciate everything!

I was running low on our supply of Martha's granola brought from Highlands, the staple of my breakfast each morning, and had been looking for some more.  So when we saw the sign along the road in Big Sur for "Holy Granola," we circled back to investigate.  Up and up we climbed, looking down over the Pacific below, on a single-lane driveway.

The Holy Granola, it transpired, was sold by a Camaldoli Hermitage, a Benedictine monastery whose gift shop was also packed with arts and crafts and all sorts of interesting books - everything from Thomas Merton to Henri Nouwen.  We were asked to be silent as we went in to view the chapel, seats all around in a circle for evening vespers, and a bowl of holy water with a little brush where the Prior blesses each worshiper.  The Hermitage is a retreat, also, and I think I could spend some time in spartan quarters in this holy place of silence and peace high above the sea.  Eating good granola.

We descended to the sea again, and now we could smell that brininess, lower and lower as we drove south to San Simeon.  On  the way we saw these elephant seals sprawled out on the beach.  They come ashore this time of year to molt, or shed their old skin.

Our hotel in San Simeon, the Cavalier, was directly on the ocean, a big wide lawn and then a steep bluff, and then the cold Pacific Ocean, into which we waded.  Martha left her rose there, given to us at the renewal of our vows in Las Vegas.  And I took away a large rock, worn smooth by the Pacific (which I somehow managed to lodge in the boot of our Mini), which will go into a stone wall I am building in Highlands.

We have seen many sunrises over the Atlantic Ocean, but never before this foggy sunset over the Pacific.

Napa Valley

In the whirlwind first part of our journey, we stayed in a different place every night, keeping up with the Mini Takes the States itinerary.  But this was the first day we stayed two nights in one place, and the reason was that Martha had signed us up for a tour of area vineyards on the Wine Trolley.  What a great idea!  And this was not the first great idea she has had on this trip nor the last.

Before the Trolley showed up, I had time for an early-morning run, the first time I had been out since Green Bay.  It was a cool 57 degrees and there was a nice neighborhood behind us; it reminded me of other well-heeled areas, nicely-landscaped homes, folks out walking.  I ran for a mile or so and came upon a school, the Justin Siena High School, circled down the driveway, and  stumbled on a quarter-mile track.  So I ran a couple of 400s - nice!  I have definitely lost some fitness but could still run a little fast, and it was great to be on a real track again.

The Wine Trolley was captained by a pair of great, informative docents (one of them in training), and they told us all about this area as we made our way up  the Napa Valley through Yountville, Oakville, Rutherford, and St. Helena, little gems of towns and plenty of money apparent. 

80% of the local residents make their living from the wine industry, including the many very nice hotels, galleries, shops, and first-class restaurants - there are more Michelin Star restaurants in such a concentrated area here than anywhere in the country.  We passed CIA headquarters (Culinary Institute of America, that is), and many well-known wineries - Beringer, Sutter Home, Francis Ford Coppola, and plenty of lesser-known boutique wineries.  Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto has a restaurant here, and we also pass the exclusive and very pricey French Laundry, a small inconspicuous place where we are told you must wait two years for a reservation.  There is lovely landscaping everywhere - Italian Cypress like those above, flowers, gardens and statues.  Olive groves do well here, too, but most of the land is entirely taken over with the cultivation of the grape.

Some vines are planted east to west, and some are planted north to south, taking advantage of different kinds of sunlight depending on the vine.  We notice bird houses in some of the field, and also roses at the ends of rows.

The owls are encouraged because they feed on rodents, and the territorial bluebirds keep out other birds.  The roses are scentless and are planted to show the first signs of a kind of disease that sometimes afflicts the vines (whose name I could not remember), like canaries in a coal mine.  Some of these vines have been here for a long time, and their roots in the rocky soil can extend to a hundred feet.

Our first stop is the Castello di Amorosa, the  pet project of a very wealthy fourth generation vintner, Dario Sattui.  It took 15 years to build and cost $40 million, and is intended to replicate a 13th-Century Tuscan castle, although it is very modern (it has to meet building codes) and contains an up-to-date winery (they did not make good wine in the 13th century).

 
Our tour guide is Gary, and he is very entertaining.  He told us he grew up in California in the 70s when everybody had a waterbed, an orange cat, and a VW Beetle, and wears a big, outlandish hat over his long hair.  I suspected he might still own a VW Beetle, and maybe an orange cat.

 
He clearly enjoys giving these tours, and his narrative is peppered with little gems of wisdom, so many that you could barely keep up.  "The best bottle of wine is the one you just finished and enjoyed," he told us.  And he told us that air is the enemy of wine; waxing philosophical, he said, "The moment we start breathing, we start living.  And we start dying." 

Gary tells us that these exacting wine-makers harvest from 11:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m., when the temperature is exactly 72 degrees.  Then we have a wine tasting, where Gary's true passion and knowledge becomes apparent.  "Cabernet Sauvignon?" he asks, pouring a little into a glass (the wine made here is not sold to any wine merchant, by the way; you have to purchase it here and take it with you, or have it shipped).  "It may or may not be Cabernet."  By law, the wine consists of 75% the grape, 85% the region, and 95% the year.

We wind through dark corridors deep in the bowels of this castle, and, pausing to take a photo (the one above, I think) I become separated from the group; the bus driver (who is instructed to remain with stragglers, apparently) and I wind up in several dead ends, and finally have to make our way upstairs where we are told where Gary probably is - the torture chamber, where there is a 300-year-old Iron Maiden purchased in Italy.  Martha is glad to see me again!

We have lunch at Cairdean, another vineyard on the way back to our hotel in Napa.  It has warmed up, but we want to sit outside, visiting with other folks on our tour who are interested to learn about Mini Takes the States.  Many of them have been to San Francisco (our next stop) and we hear all about Alcatraz and Fisherman's Wharf.  We sit under the shade of some big coastal redwoods, and our driver tells us that groups of these trees have an unusual ability to stay stronger in more rugged parts of the coast by intertwining their roots together.  And that's a good definition of a strong society, or a strong marriage, after all.

At the end of this perfect day, we return to the Napa Valley Ivy Premier, and end up walking next door to Il Posto Trattoria, where they welcome us back a second time.