Nature Essay

Eric Haacker

Dr. Williams

HCOL 40023

18 December 2019

The Canyon of Grandeur

            Last year, it was decided that I would be taking a long-awaited road trip to the Grand Canyon. By decided, I mean by me, it was my decision. Although, the forging of this journey began long before the long road trip began. I suppose it really all began back in high school, sophomore year to be exact, and it would take another five years, half a decade, before that fateful dream became enacted upon. The reason for the idea first appeared in my physical education class as I sat on the floor of the gymnasium floor with my brother Walter. We were discussing bucket list vacation ideas as a way to pass the time before the bell rang and I mentioned the Grand Canyon. I had half mentioned it as a joke, having never really thought about the place before. It seemed too boring to be so engrained into the iconoclasm that it belonged too. I mean, how could some big hole in the middle of a deserted Nowhere, Arizona be interesting enough to be such a large piece of Americana and treated as such a national park and landmark? The best I could tell was that I would walk out to the ledge of the thing, stare at it for maybe eight minutes before getting bored and leaving it to do whatever it is that holes do when no one is watching them. No, I had mentioned it as a joke and that is how the idea remained for the next few years. It sorts of became a reoccurring gag. We would be thinking of things to do after graduation of ideas for fall break entertainment, and without fail, the ongoing antic of the Grand Canyon kept bobbing its never resting head back into our conversations. Eventually, I think we all decided (by this time my brother Clifton and one of or best friends, Michael, had joined in on the fun) that we should actually make the long journey to the mythic hole. I don’t if it was because we had somehow managed, after years of bringing it up, to convince ourselves that it was a good idea and we wanted to go or if the joke was wearing thin despite our best efforts and we were all searching for a way to grab a humor defibrillator and shock the Grand Canyon joke back to life. Whatever the case was and however the conversation started, the four of us finally came to the conclusion that at long last it was time to make the great leap of funny fate and travel to the Grand Canyon.

            So, the plan was enacted, and we decided that Spring Break 2019 would be the opportune time to venture out into the west. This was the only time when the schedules of the four now grown-ish adventures would allow. And even then, the timing was less than ideal because Clifton and I would not be able to leave until Friday, but Walter and Michael had to be back at their school Monday (we did not all go to the same school and thus the timing of everything was quick and unsynchronized). The “vacation” would further be inhibited by the fact that we had decided to drive to the Grand Canyon instead of flying like most sane people would do, but then again, most sane people would not go to the Grand Canyon just because they made a joke in high school and decided to take it to its logical extreme. It would also be cheaper if we drove.

            Now the drive to the Grand Canyon was a little over sixteen hours long from our starting position in Waco, Texas. This, of course, was not counting all the small stops we would take to either fuel the car or to fuel ourselves. We had all met there the night before because my brother Clifton goes to Baylor University and so we used his apartment as a meeting place the night before we embarked on our great journey. We awoke the next morning, much too early for my liking, piled into the car, and set forth on a journeyed that would prove to be a testament to our companionship and perseverance as well as a new dive into the marvels of the geographical world and the beauties of the natural world.

            The plan for the first day was simple: drive to Flagstaff, Arizona. It was a fine drive, I spent most of it blissfully asleep in the back seat while my brothers or Michael drove. They did not allow me to drive because I am a terrible driver and I did not feel the need to correct them on that part. I was perfectly fine not having to helm the motor car for hours on end, passing the lackluster landscape of west Texas. I am convinced that one person could drive through west Texas for hours and hours while another person simply stays put and both of them would see the same thing. It is the monotony of nature at its best, or worst, depending on how you view it. West Texas is basically just sand, dirt, and windmills for as far as the eye can see and then more sand, dirt, and windmills beyond that. It is the closest to purgatory that a living person can experience. Sometimes there might be a cactus or a small shrub off in the distance but those are just fleeting glimpses of hope among seas of tan and beige.

            Eventually, one leaves the drab and the monotony of western Texas and comes upon the foothills and mountains. Well, at least they looked like mountains to four guys from Louisiana whose concept of high elevation is the Superman ride at Six Flags. The elevation of the ground is gradual. None of us even knew that we were heading up. It must have a one-degree incline for hundreds of miles because none of us noticed and then when we got out of the car in Flagstaff the air was not breathable. Well, unbreathable might be a bit of an overreaction, but it was thin. It was like trying to breathe through a straw or snorkel on land. I guess, in a way, that’s how most changes in life happen, gradually. Sure, everyone can thing of some big change that shaped their life, these are the tornadoes and hurricanes, but most of the time change is gradual, it creeps up on you like a change in elevation. Then one day you step out of the car and the air is different and you’re not where you were when you began.

            That night we slept in some hotel in Flagstaff before getting up early again to see the Grand Canyon which was only about an hour or so away. It was a cold morning, there was snow in the parking lot of the hotel as we drove off and then some more along the roadside as we grew closer to our destination. We eventually arrived at the Grand Canyon at around nine that morning and I was extremely excited. At long last, after five years, our vision was being realized and the Grand Canyon was in my grasps.

            Now the first thing a person will notice upon seeing the Grand Canyon is its size. The hole is absolutely massive. I knew that it would be big, and I had seen pictures of it before on television and in magazines, but I mean, this thing was gigantic, and I was only seeing a part of it. I guess I thought it would be smaller for some reason. I think that I might have thought that it was named long ago as a prank that just turned into the name like this trip initially was. I was wrong. The magnitude made me feel incredibly small, like an ant who got lost on his way back to the hill and was now standing beside a ravine wondering just how large the world truly is and afraid to find out. No one tells you how insignificant the Grand Canyon makes you feel. Sure, they talk about its natural beauty and the majestic colors of the many layers of the canyon. They will say things about the art of God or how each rocky edifice looks as if it caught just the smallest, brightest glimpse of sunlight and stored it in itself to shine throughout all eternity. People will cheer and praise each winding bend of the canyon as its own magnum opus or say that sunsets fail in comparison across the world map to the gloriousness of the sun dropping below the horizon of the western ridge. This is all true, for the most part, but it is not what you see or feel at first glance. No, the first thing that you feel is insignificance, as if your whole life has to this hole and now it means nothing. This big chunk of rock, or lack of rock, has existed eons before you have, and it will exist long after you have gone. You mean nothing to the canyon and yet in just one glance it has changed your entire world. Nature for the most part is wholly indifferent to us.

            The second thing that a person will notice about the Grand Canyon is the Colorado River that runs through it. This is not because the river itself is anything impressive, it is actually kind of small looking compared to the other rivers I have seen. Nor does it seemed to be moving at any great speed and one cannot even hear it running along the rocks almost a mile below your feet. The river is so remarkable in that it is so unremarkable. It is quite possibly the most boring river I have ever seen and yet somehow it managed to carve out the most incredible landscape in the world. That was what made it remarkable. That small river must have carved away at that hard ground for century after century until it managed to create something utterly beautiful and beyond what I ever would dream possible for a river. That river, so small and unassuming, was the mighty catalyst of change in that desert landscape and as I stood there, I could not help but think that the river would continue to carve into that canyon for many centuries to come. It reminded me just how brief our lives are, how quickly our flames will burn out, and yet that river and that canyon live together in a time all their own. They live in geological time, unchanged and unfettered by the time constructs of man. I think this is part of what it might mean to “think like a mountain”, to think in a way unfamiliar to ourselves and yet common place to the wild world.

            I left for the Grand Canyon as though it was just another thing to do; I left for the canyon not thinking much of what it might mean for me and the perspective from which I spy the world, but I left different, changed. I had grown, not in the sense of physically, though I am sure I gained some muscle from all the walking and climbing, but in the sense of my communion and relationship with the natural world. I had begun to glimpse at what it meant to think like the Canyon. To see my life as a part of another’s history instead of everything being a part of my own. I learned to of not connect with nature, to at least hold its hand and that to connect with nature is to understand one’s self and to understand their pace in the world. If I could personally speak with and thank the Grand Canyon, for it taught me more than any book.