Grand Canyon

The first car I ever owned was a ’74 Ford Maverick, white, I named “Flossy” (because I was a dental hygienist). One summer my mother and I decided to take Flossy on a road trip. My step-dad planned our itinerary for us, which included a visit to the Grand Canyon. We had a great time, taking turns driving, the non-driver navigated and read aloud the novel everyone had been talking about, “The Thornbirds”.

Then we got to looking at the map and the itinerary and we started to think (not such a good idea, you can over think some things). He has us going to the North rim of the Grand canyon, but we are coming from the south. hmmm. Look at the map, there is a road that goes there from the south and just ends right there, hmmm. The road picks up again right there on the north side, hmmm. How old is this map? I bet they’ve finished connecting those two roads by now, don’t you think? Yea, and I bet Dad just doesn’t know that, that’s why he had us driving around instead of through, right? Yea, I’m sure the road is finished. Let’s take the shortcut. Aren’t you glad we thought of that? Think how much time we’ll save!

So we went to the south rim. My, the canyon is big, really, really big! ! No wonder they call it “Grand” (although we thought just “grand” was misleading—“grandiose”, “monstrously huge” may have given us better clues). I don’t think they’ll be building a bridge across there… Dad was pretty smart sending us to the north rim. Our little shortcut cost us time and we nearly ran out of gas getting back to our scheduled itinerary.

I remember reading of the Donner Party. A surviving member of the group wrote to a relative afterwards with this advice “Don’t take no short cuts.” I concur.