random observation at the Canyon

As I was finishing up my lovely week of solo camping, I encountered a very sad family. I had just finished my 8 minute shower (2 minutes longer than it really needs to be...couldn't they charge 50 cents less, and save some water?), and felt all squeaky clean, ready to face the long drive back home. As I am sitting in my car letting my feet dry, listening to the wind in the trees, this mini van pulls up and what I easily guessed to be the dad was yelling at the others in the car. I could tell he had tried to say these things before but no one ever HEARD him.

Kid: [whine voice] Why are we stopping HERE? This isn't the Grand Canyon!

Dad: We are just parking here and we will hike up to the rim [Dad had made an error here...the better place to park is near the market or Shrine of Ages - both completely available, free parking areas, and CLOSE to where the shuttle buses pick up]. Don't forget your water bottles

Kid: [whine voice] I didn't bring one. How come you didn't tell us to bring one???

Dad: [defensive, "told you so" tone] I told you guys we were going camping!

Wife: [had just about enough of this car trip] You never told them to bring their water bottles

Dad: Of course I told them - I know I said we were going to camp! [ahh, but did he EXPLICITLY tell the little pecker heads to bring their water bottles, AND tell them why they would need them, and how thirsty they would be without them, and how expensive and environmentally unfriendly a plastic water bottle can be?? I think NOT]

He gets out and the wife slowly gets out, neither has on a hat, neither has a fanny pack, neither has spent 2 minutes putting on sun screen....but they have water bottles. As they walk off, the kids are dawdling.

Dad: [bellowing]: Come ON!! What are you guys doing??

Kid 1 runs after them, then Kid 2, neither with hats or water bottles, and Dad bleep bleep locks car. As they walk off toward the trail to the rim, I hear them all mildly bickering back and forth. Dad trying to be energetic and excited, mom sounding tired and ignored, and the kids just being little turds..."so where IS the Grand Canyon?" "this is stupid." etc.

I roll my eyes and think how sad to come all this way and just fight about everything, and THEN to park in such an inconvenient place simply 'cuz you didn't take 5 minutes to look at the map. I drove over to the camp site office and turned in my tag, and as I was driving out, I saw them all trudging back to the car, mom screaming at dad about how he should have KNOWN that was a bad idea, and dad trying to placate her and the whiney kids!

Feeling all full of good deeds and overflowing with love for the Canyon, I turn back into the Camper Service lot and pull into a space a few spots over. I decide to pretend I was going to throw away some trash, and walk by the van. Mom is now sitting behind the wheel and I walk up, she looks SO sad and miserable. Her pretty blue eyes full of tears. I asked if I could help them out at all. No, no, she insists they are fine. Dad has gone inside apparently to talk to someone. I said, I have been here a week and if you need any help or suggestions, I will be happy to help. She doesn't look at me and says again, they are fine.

So, I go throw away my "trash" and head back to my car. I noticed they had a camping tag for just one night. They are going to set up tents and ALL that, for ONE night, and they are already at each others throats....gawd.....

I know we were that ugly to my mother and father when we were kids. I know my parents yelled at each other like that on our trips through western Canada and Colorado, and I remember a doozy of a match in a blinding thunder storm in east Texas. The pictures here are a mix...one was up to Colorado in the summer of I think 1969, which I don't remember much at all; and the other in Canada I am guessing 1971- from Calgary, we went up into the Rocky Mountains, Banff, Lake Louise, and over through British Columbia, Vancouver, down to Puget Sound and Seattle. The memories I have of that trip are as foggy as the weather was, but I see the photos and HOPE my parents had more fun than this family was having!

By the time I was in high school, mom took us on those summer trips without dad - he was too busy with work to be gone for weeks on end, and I doubt we could have taken each other for that long anyway. One summer she took us to the Grand Canyon, and I still remember that trip. Just a few hours - we drove in, saw the view from a couple of the pull outs, then drove on again to the Painted Desert.

None of my frickin' business, I KNOW, but I wish I could have told that family to be kinder to each other; to cherish the memory of going to the Grand Canyon together....there are so many things I have said and done to my family that I wish I could take back...


(all photos except one, were taken by my father with the fancy SLR Canon camera he had just got...I have it now, and need to learn how to use it properly.....Mom took the other photo and it is the only one of him and us in the whole set)