Are You Afraid of the Dark?

(By Tracy)

I’m currently rumbling along Interstate 10 in California (California?!) as Dad’s passenger in the cab of the U-Haul. Tom is riding with Mom in the Escape, and Erika is driving with Michelle in the Accord.

I am amazed that we have really come this far. We are only about 150 miles from Los Angeles, and I still have not been able to wrap my head around the idea that we won’t be driving all this way back in a week or two and that California is actually our destination.

However, I’m getting ahead of my blog-self who last left off a few days ago in Colorado.

Now, I was told by Tom (who, as I said, is not currently with me and therefore cannot explain himself or argue otherwise) that he has a thing or two to write specifically about the Arches National Park. So, I’ll only describe that briefly, then move on, letting Tom fill in his details when the time comes.

The drive from Vail, Colorado to Moab, Utah on Tuesday night was not quite like any other drive I have done. At least two hours after the sun had completely set, we were still on the road. We were all tired, and I wasn’t thrilled to be a driver in the dark, but we were getting close and I was eager to get to the hotel and get to sleep. My parents had arrived at the hotel about half an hour before we did, and it was the last 20 miles or so that were simply bizarre.

At that point the road was only two-lanes wide, with the Accord’s headlights in my rearview mirror being the only lights I could see. The bizarre thing which happens in that kind of darkness is that there is absolutely no way to know what is “out there.” What I mean is, there could have been a herd of elephants sitting on the side of the road with bags packed, waiting to hitch a ride, and I would not have known.

(For those of you who may not know: my parents’ house, which I grew up in, is on one of the main streets in our town; my bedroom window faced the street for the first 15 years of my life. Without air conditioning, our windows would be wide open on the warm summer nights, and the steady sound of traffic going by became a soothing sound to me. Also, I did not have to worry about the scary monsters that come in the dark because I always kept the window shades open and had the light from the streetlights and headlights. So to me, driving in that pitch black into Moab was a little unsettling to say the least.)

Anyway, Wednesday morning came, and we headed out after breakfast to visit Arches National Park. The main attraction at this park – its various rock formations - is astounding. Cars drive along the main roads of the park, with their passengers looking out miles in any direction at the orangey / reddish rock that stands tall in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Although our Midwestern group tends to shy away from the heat and much prefers the air-conditioned comfort of our vehicles, we could not pass up the opportunity to park the car and hike up to one of the “window” arches. This arch was massive, spanning maybe 75 feet with a hole in the middle of around 30 feet. It stood about 25 feet tall. (Note: these are estimations from Dad, my most trusted estimator.)

Our moods shifted as we relaxed in the shade of the open “window” that was made in the large stone. We sat for a while in awe, especially after looking up and seeing the vast crack in the stone above us, stretching almost completely from one side of the 30 foot opening to the other. The whole park was truly amazing.

But like I said, I’ll let Tom tell the rest of that story.

The Arches were not the end of our excitement for Wednesday. The other half of the day would be spent finishing the six-hour drive to the Grand Canyon, where we would find our hotel for Wednesday night.

All was going smoothly, albeit a little behind schedule, until a couple hours after the sun had set. Again I found myself in the driver’s seat, this time with Michelle next to me. We were following the road to the park, which eventually became the road through the park. And again, I found myself driving through near pitch-black darkness, although this time I could barely make out trees on the sides of the roads.

After trying to call my parents on the cell phone and realizing that we had no signal, it dawned on us that there was the possibility of our GPS losing satellite reception. We scribbled down the next few steps in case that happened (yes, we did have a map, too, but a map does little good if you find yourself lost somewhere in the Grand Canyon).

We continued the drive. After a little time a car came up behind us (the only car we had seen in quite a while), which is when my imagination started going. I have seen very few horror movies in my day, primarily because my imagination for terrifying things is quite healthy as is. I asked Michelle what we would do if the person in the car behind us turned out to actually be a psycho killer, and she tried to calm my fears. I pulled aside to let the car pass, watching my back as directed at the start of this trip.

Shortly thereafter, we saw a yellow traffic sign with a picture of a large cat and the words, “Next 10 Miles.” New fears and scenarios came to life in my mind – a giant bobcat could jump out of the woods and (the possibilities grow here)

1. Cause us to get into an accident that would leave our cars un-drivable and leave us stranded who-knows-where with little resources beyond the cases of bottled water I insisted we keep stocked in our car at all times or

2. Attack the car from the outside, using its mighty fangs to tear through the roof and giant paws to crash through the window, leaving little of us for park rangers to find except maybe some rubber tires.

Of course we made our way to the hotel fully intact without any wild animal sightings. When we reached the hotel and got in contact with my parents, they asked us if we saw what we had been driving alongside most of the way – the Grand Canyon itself. (Probably better that I was not able to see how close we had been. Imagine the new scenarios, taking into account a drop of a couple hundred or thousand feet at the edge of the pitch-black road.)

The Grand Canyon was tremendous. I am not sure exactly what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. I knew it was big, but I didn’t realize how big it could be. It is amazingly huge, and imagining how it was formed left us bewildered. I was happy to see that the park isn’t commercialized (I imagined something perhaps like Niagara Falls), and it was great to enjoy a picnic in a quieter area of the park. In the few short hours that we were there, the weather varied from still, sunny and hot to breezy, rainy and warm, and hearing the thunder boom and echo from the other side of the canyon was unbelievable.

So as I wrap this entry up, Dad and I are just driving down from the mountains into a valley full of lights. Our altitude dropped from 1,500 feet above sea level to -2 feet. The street is now six-lanes wide, each block has a streetlight, and the glow of Palm Springs and the surrounding area brightens the night sky.

I love nature and find it to be awesome and breathtaking, but something tells me that I will sleep well tonight.