At The Fringe Of The Grand Canyon, 1982

[August 1982.] Searching for side road to Grand Canyon. Partly cloudy (60s), predict hot later. We're getting our kicks off of Route 66.

Brunch $6.03. Costs are outrageous here. But the people are nice. Helicopters everywhere! Small planes, too. The clouds . . .

Driving along cast rim of that giant avatar of the Badlands. Grand Canyon Village was horrible. We banked and posted there. Erik got crowd phobia so we took off. Wow! First isolated point and we came across strands of Irish trumpet -- a duet on the edge of a cliff.

Canyon -- original opinion is speechless. Breathtaking, spectacular, immense, mondo, dig it, fresh smelling gorgeous ions cooling and sprinkling rain . . . the hues (purple, yellow, red, white). Pine and smooth schists. Clouds seem to rise out of the canyon. Misty morning stranger.

Altitude 7,000 feet -- every 1,000 feet = 300 miles. N, same latitude est. 0 ft. . . . . .

[Later]: Driving through Wupatki National Monument (http://www.nps.gov/wupa/) and going to Sunset Crater, through Coconino National Forest. Nalakihu - Citadel was fascinating -- a pueblo with outriders visible in the distance . . . Use of natural topography, basalt. Weird "sink" from fault and erosion. Clear, rain here and there. Volcanic land, black soil and pumice, silty black or red. Scratchy growth -- shrubs and stunted trees, all shades of green, a few pines, a few wild flowers like white trumpets. Tufts of grass try to make it up through the soil. Lizard. Bird. A pebbly land. Hilly and mesas or buttes or canyons or cliffs. Orange baby trumpets . . .

Driving between Wupatki and Grand Canyon -- Navajos and the Painted Desert, green vistas, little shacks.

Today's Rune: Wholeness.