Deathrace2018, Final Day: Canyons, Canyons and Lessons Learned

We finished the drive with a very colorful day: the Grand Canyon is well named.  The last time I was here, we stopped for just a few minutes.  This time, we spent more than an hour, which is still not much, but we had someplace to be.






The digital age means taking tons of pics with no thought about film or developing costs.  So, these are just a few of the many pics.  The sun broke through from time to time so the different light made a big difference on the colors of the canyon and how they popped.

After five days of driving, of endless podcasts (thanks Doug Loves Movies for keeping us both awake, various sports podcasts for keeping me awake and her asleep, and various podcasts of my daughter's choosing that didn't prove to be very soothing to me), of many welcome to state x signs (we have an incomplete collection since it seemed to be the case that the co-pilot/photographer was asleep when we crossed into a new state about half the time), of many unhealthy breakfasts,

we have some realizations and some enduring questions.  The latter include:

• what is as a safety corridor?  Seems to be a southwest highway thing, but I have no idea what they mean.
• what is Bearizona and did we miss something really cool?
• when can I find the time to come back and hike the canyon?  Probably not until after my ankle heals.

 What did we learn from this endless drive?

• That there is a lot of empty in California, just like in Canada, but it is a coastal/inland thing in CAf and a border or not thing in CAd.
• That California will always feel like home to me--the shopping, the morning fog, the open architecture, the overly complicated designs of apartment complexes, and, yes, the Mexican food.

• That the US contains so much, so many different but yet similar places.  One of the key problems with Trump is that America never stopped being Great.  A drive across makes that abundantly clear.
• Indeed, the diversity that one sees in this kind of trip is something to be appreciated, not feared.

We were exhausted by the end and just a wee bit sore, but I am glad to have helped my daughter make the transition to the next stage of her life.  Of course, the great food, heaps of milkshakes and other sweets, fun encounters, and some tourism made the drive far more pleasant.  Oh, and, yeah, her car will get mighty dusty when she drops me off as I make my way to my home, leaving her in her new home.