Grand Canyon Trip = GRAND FAILURE
I've been told that I sometimes have the habit of being "too nice" - I'd be lying if I said it wasn't true. There are times I genuinely have a hard time saying "NO!" to people despite my better judgment. I’ve certainly gotten better about this fact recently, but I’ve realized that going out on a limb for people is going to cost me a limb one of these days.
I was at work yesterday afternoon when I received a call from my friend Andréa. She informed that she was going to be in town on an extended layover and was adamant about seeing me, as it’d been close to five years since we’d last seen each other. Andréa was on her way back home from Australia and thought that seeing the Grand Canyon would be a wonderful opportunity to cap off what sounded like an already amazing trip. I was wary about her suggestion to head out at 5:00 AM this morning (especially because I didn’t head to bed until about 3:00ish) but on the other hand, she seemed genuinely excited about seeing The Canyon, and I couldn’t bring myself to say no.
The drive to The Canyon in itself was uneventful, if harrowing. Anyone who has made the drive knows that the drive there is positively gorgeous (I’ll post the pictures to Facebook in a bit!), but I was also the one doing all the driving (on an hour and a half of sleep, no less!), so needless to say, I was less than thrilled about having to do it. Still, having Andréa around was fantastic, and having her around really made me realize just how much I missed my life on the East Coast. She’d been super hospitable the last time I’d been in Washington D.C., and I was determined to outdo her on this trip (which in theory wouldn’t be hard, because my trip over there saw us get lost for the better part of twelve hours, in an experience that was marked by jaywalking tickets, food poisoning from roadside hot dog vendors, and stuffed animals that smelled like construction workers).
Once we got to the Canyon itself however, a meteorite hit the fan and smashed it to bits. The original plan called for us to head up early this morning, rent a cabin on the grounds of the Grand Canyon National Park, hike a lot, spend the night on the park grounds, hike some more, and drive directly to their airport so that Andréa could catch her connecting flight. This was unfortunately, not to be.
As we were about four miles outside our lodging facilities Andréa’s rental unexpectedly died. When I say “unexpectedly”, I mean it in every sense of the word - there was no sputtering, no gasping, no groaning, or no smoke, and the gas tank seemed to be full. It had just decided to stop for seemingly no reason whatsoever. Given my long and storied history when it came to the inexplicable killing of head gaskets, I immediately guessed what was wrong. On the other hand however, I couldn’t tell you the difference between a carburetor and a carrot, so I kept my mouth shut about my suspicions, and called up AAA instead.
Upon calling up AAA (which in itself proved to be somewhat difficult, as we were technically in the middle of nowhere), we were informed that they were not allowed to enter the Park itself, and as such, we’d have to push our car out all the way to the park boundaries, or have the rangers tow our truck out of the park for us. Once we were out, AAA would be more than happy to help us to the nearest repair shop.
The ranger callbox nearest to us seemed to be out of commission, so we had no choice but to push the car for the next four miles. Frustration however, quickly turned to fear about two miles in when we suddenly saw this sign:
Now, I’m not a person who swears often, but I still stand by my verbiage, as I believe that, “SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! WE NEED TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! LIKE NOW! PUSH HARDER, GODDAMNIT!” was completely appropriate, considering the circumstances. My colorful language however, did not have their desired effect. Andréa fell to the ground and stayed there, immobilized by laughter, as she tried to come to terms with what she’d just heard. She continued laughing at me for the rest of the trip over the incident, which was both irksome and befuddling at once. Do I really sound that odd when I swear? Well, most of you probably haven’t heard me do it, so I should probably explode into a foul mouthed tirade the next time I see any of you, just to see how you’ll react. o.O;
By the time we finally go to our cabin, I was exhausted. As the park rangers in the area arranged for a tow, we decided to freshen up in our cabin before grabbing a quick hike. I didn’t want to have to driven six hours into the middle of nowhere on my day off just to turn around - that would have just about killed me. As Andréa hopped in the shower, I decided to grab a quick nap. I hadn’t even been out for five minutes when a loud scream from the bathroom woke me up.
As I knocked on the door asking if everything was okay, I was met with a panicked, “There’s no lock on the door! Just get in here and kill it! KILL IT!”. I hesitated. I wasn’t sure about what was going on here, but my mind was intent on finding out. All of this went through my head in the two seconds it took for me to push the door open:
“Is she coming on to me? Or her is need really dire? What am I going to beet on the other side of that door? A mountain lion? A rattlesnake? Or even worse, a SCORPION?!? I’m terrified of scorpions. Should I just leave her in there? Scorpion stings aren’t fatal, are they? And even if they are, uh, okay, okay, I probably shouldn’t leave her in there. Damn it! Can’t it just go away on it’s own?!? Maybe! Gah! Would it be even worse if she’s coming on to me again? I don’t want to leave her hanging! Shouldn’t I wait for her to get her clothes back on before I turn her down? This is so complicated! How did I even get myself into this mess?!?”
I’d subtly hinted to Andréa on the drive over that I wasn’t interested in anything with anyone at the moment, and I knew that despite what she’d felt for me in the past (or in the present), she’d almost always been incredibly respectful of my wishes. As such, this had to be a real emergency! I pushed the door open to find Andréa hiding behind her shower curtain pointing fearfully at the bathroom mirror. Upon closer inspection the object of her terror appeared to be a small, harmless looking black spider…
…with a very distinctive red hourglass design on it lower torso.
I’ve always been a proponent of keeping at least a spider or two in your home. They’re often helpful neighbors, killing all manner of small, irritating, bugs. I normally feel pretty bad about killing spiders, as they’re creatures that generally try to steer clear of humans. Black widows on the other hands, are poisonous, and sometimes aggressive, especially if they’re pregnant. This put me in something of an interesting conundrum. On one hand I could kill it, and ensure that it never bit anyone again, but on the other, I could let it live, and ensure that both Andréa and I got out of his bite free, and leave its destiny in its own hands. I decided to employ the latter tactic, so I grabbed a comb off the bathroom table, and gently coaxed the bemused spider onto the comb.
As I gently walked the comb to the bathroom window, the spider suddenly jumped, and inadvertently landed on my right hand. Trying not to panic, I continued walking to the window, hoping it’d jump off again once it saw an opportunity for escape. The Black Widow however, had no plans to escape. Right as I came upon the window, it buried its fangs into my skin.
I froze. The spider froze too, seemingly mystified as to what my next action might be.
Once the realization of what happened finally dawned upon me, my befuddled annoyance turned into steely resolve. I glared at the Widow for a brief second before calmly backhanding the wall. As the spider’s torso exploded into goo, I heard a loud crack - pain shot up my right thumb, as I sheepishly realized that I’d probably sprained or fractured it in my battle with the spider. Oh, here’s a picture of the aftermath, in case you were curious:
As the spider’s poison started to take effect, the pain dulled - my entire right arm went numb before a different sort of pain shot through it, and into my back. The pain however, wasn’t as bad as I feared it might be. Fractured/Sprained thumb and dry heaving aside, I was fine. By the time I stepped into the living room to let Andréa finish changing, the ranger who’d be towing us had arrived. He looked over the bite, and diagnosed my thumb with a mild fracture before being kind enough to treat both wounds for me. He was also nice enough to take us back out of the park on a private state road, allowing us to take some breathtaking shots of the Canyon.
We were still a ways off from the I-40 when the tree of us heard a small “pop”. The ranger (whose name I feel terrible about forgetting) immediately diagnosed the problem as a flat tire, and set about to fixing it, as Andréa and I joined him outside the car and made conversation. Just as the topic of mountain lions came up though, Andréa screamed. Terrified that the mountain lions had finally found us, I turned around, fully expecting to come face to face with a snarling, pissed off, mountain feline.
When I turned around to face the threat, confusion once again gave way to resolve - a Black Widow had climbed out from inside the car, out the mostly open window, and had come to a halt about two inches from my right shoulder. The ranger noticed the spider too, and quickly moved to pick it up, in the hopes of getting it on to a plant and away from the car. This spider however, proved to be even more aggressive that the last one - it skirted the ranger’s incoming fingers, and promptly bit his right index finger, right above the fingernail. As he recoiled, I realized that I’d had enough - I took off a shoe, and smashed the evil little critter into oblivion. As I did so however, something unexpected happened - it exploded into dozens of little black dots, each of which scurried hastily away from the dead Widow’s corpse.
In a flash, Andréa and I realized that the little black dots were babies - I’d just killed a mother of seventy-two, and the babies had now taken over the car. There were entirely too many to kill, and as they swarmed the truck, the ranger placed a call for a new truck to pick us up. He reasoned that his truck had become so inundated baby Black Widows that it probably wasn’t safe to drive anymore. Thankfully, he was fairly good natured about the whole thing.
It was at about this point when Andréa and I decided that it was probably going to be best to cut our losses and just drive home once we got the car fixed. I’m still a pained and dizzy from the bite, and more than a little embarrassed about my fractured thumb, while Andréa probably wants to put as much distance between herself and this Black-Widow infested state as possible.
Something tells me that I’m not going to see her for at least another five years. Haha. I have to give Nick super-special props for keeping me distracted with book talk on the agonizingly long drive back. Thanks! :)
...On a sadder note though, my newly sustained injuries will mean that I'm going to be unfit to drive until further notice. That essentially means that unless you folks are going to be able give me a ride to anything that we've made plans for, those plans are going to have to be postponed until I've healed. Sorry. :(
I was at work yesterday afternoon when I received a call from my friend Andréa. She informed that she was going to be in town on an extended layover and was adamant about seeing me, as it’d been close to five years since we’d last seen each other. Andréa was on her way back home from Australia and thought that seeing the Grand Canyon would be a wonderful opportunity to cap off what sounded like an already amazing trip. I was wary about her suggestion to head out at 5:00 AM this morning (especially because I didn’t head to bed until about 3:00ish) but on the other hand, she seemed genuinely excited about seeing The Canyon, and I couldn’t bring myself to say no.
The drive to The Canyon in itself was uneventful, if harrowing. Anyone who has made the drive knows that the drive there is positively gorgeous (I’ll post the pictures to Facebook in a bit!), but I was also the one doing all the driving (on an hour and a half of sleep, no less!), so needless to say, I was less than thrilled about having to do it. Still, having Andréa around was fantastic, and having her around really made me realize just how much I missed my life on the East Coast. She’d been super hospitable the last time I’d been in Washington D.C., and I was determined to outdo her on this trip (which in theory wouldn’t be hard, because my trip over there saw us get lost for the better part of twelve hours, in an experience that was marked by jaywalking tickets, food poisoning from roadside hot dog vendors, and stuffed animals that smelled like construction workers).
Once we got to the Canyon itself however, a meteorite hit the fan and smashed it to bits. The original plan called for us to head up early this morning, rent a cabin on the grounds of the Grand Canyon National Park, hike a lot, spend the night on the park grounds, hike some more, and drive directly to their airport so that Andréa could catch her connecting flight. This was unfortunately, not to be.
As we were about four miles outside our lodging facilities Andréa’s rental unexpectedly died. When I say “unexpectedly”, I mean it in every sense of the word - there was no sputtering, no gasping, no groaning, or no smoke, and the gas tank seemed to be full. It had just decided to stop for seemingly no reason whatsoever. Given my long and storied history when it came to the inexplicable killing of head gaskets, I immediately guessed what was wrong. On the other hand however, I couldn’t tell you the difference between a carburetor and a carrot, so I kept my mouth shut about my suspicions, and called up AAA instead.
Upon calling up AAA (which in itself proved to be somewhat difficult, as we were technically in the middle of nowhere), we were informed that they were not allowed to enter the Park itself, and as such, we’d have to push our car out all the way to the park boundaries, or have the rangers tow our truck out of the park for us. Once we were out, AAA would be more than happy to help us to the nearest repair shop.
The ranger callbox nearest to us seemed to be out of commission, so we had no choice but to push the car for the next four miles. Frustration however, quickly turned to fear about two miles in when we suddenly saw this sign:
Now, I’m not a person who swears often, but I still stand by my verbiage, as I believe that, “SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! WE NEED TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! LIKE NOW! PUSH HARDER, GODDAMNIT!” was completely appropriate, considering the circumstances. My colorful language however, did not have their desired effect. Andréa fell to the ground and stayed there, immobilized by laughter, as she tried to come to terms with what she’d just heard. She continued laughing at me for the rest of the trip over the incident, which was both irksome and befuddling at once. Do I really sound that odd when I swear? Well, most of you probably haven’t heard me do it, so I should probably explode into a foul mouthed tirade the next time I see any of you, just to see how you’ll react. o.O;
By the time we finally go to our cabin, I was exhausted. As the park rangers in the area arranged for a tow, we decided to freshen up in our cabin before grabbing a quick hike. I didn’t want to have to driven six hours into the middle of nowhere on my day off just to turn around - that would have just about killed me. As Andréa hopped in the shower, I decided to grab a quick nap. I hadn’t even been out for five minutes when a loud scream from the bathroom woke me up.
As I knocked on the door asking if everything was okay, I was met with a panicked, “There’s no lock on the door! Just get in here and kill it! KILL IT!”. I hesitated. I wasn’t sure about what was going on here, but my mind was intent on finding out. All of this went through my head in the two seconds it took for me to push the door open:
“Is she coming on to me? Or her is need really dire? What am I going to beet on the other side of that door? A mountain lion? A rattlesnake? Or even worse, a SCORPION?!? I’m terrified of scorpions. Should I just leave her in there? Scorpion stings aren’t fatal, are they? And even if they are, uh, okay, okay, I probably shouldn’t leave her in there. Damn it! Can’t it just go away on it’s own?!? Maybe! Gah! Would it be even worse if she’s coming on to me again? I don’t want to leave her hanging! Shouldn’t I wait for her to get her clothes back on before I turn her down? This is so complicated! How did I even get myself into this mess?!?”
I’d subtly hinted to Andréa on the drive over that I wasn’t interested in anything with anyone at the moment, and I knew that despite what she’d felt for me in the past (or in the present), she’d almost always been incredibly respectful of my wishes. As such, this had to be a real emergency! I pushed the door open to find Andréa hiding behind her shower curtain pointing fearfully at the bathroom mirror. Upon closer inspection the object of her terror appeared to be a small, harmless looking black spider…
…with a very distinctive red hourglass design on it lower torso.
I’ve always been a proponent of keeping at least a spider or two in your home. They’re often helpful neighbors, killing all manner of small, irritating, bugs. I normally feel pretty bad about killing spiders, as they’re creatures that generally try to steer clear of humans. Black widows on the other hands, are poisonous, and sometimes aggressive, especially if they’re pregnant. This put me in something of an interesting conundrum. On one hand I could kill it, and ensure that it never bit anyone again, but on the other, I could let it live, and ensure that both Andréa and I got out of his bite free, and leave its destiny in its own hands. I decided to employ the latter tactic, so I grabbed a comb off the bathroom table, and gently coaxed the bemused spider onto the comb.
As I gently walked the comb to the bathroom window, the spider suddenly jumped, and inadvertently landed on my right hand. Trying not to panic, I continued walking to the window, hoping it’d jump off again once it saw an opportunity for escape. The Black Widow however, had no plans to escape. Right as I came upon the window, it buried its fangs into my skin.
I froze. The spider froze too, seemingly mystified as to what my next action might be.
Once the realization of what happened finally dawned upon me, my befuddled annoyance turned into steely resolve. I glared at the Widow for a brief second before calmly backhanding the wall. As the spider’s torso exploded into goo, I heard a loud crack - pain shot up my right thumb, as I sheepishly realized that I’d probably sprained or fractured it in my battle with the spider. Oh, here’s a picture of the aftermath, in case you were curious:
As the spider’s poison started to take effect, the pain dulled - my entire right arm went numb before a different sort of pain shot through it, and into my back. The pain however, wasn’t as bad as I feared it might be. Fractured/Sprained thumb and dry heaving aside, I was fine. By the time I stepped into the living room to let Andréa finish changing, the ranger who’d be towing us had arrived. He looked over the bite, and diagnosed my thumb with a mild fracture before being kind enough to treat both wounds for me. He was also nice enough to take us back out of the park on a private state road, allowing us to take some breathtaking shots of the Canyon.
We were still a ways off from the I-40 when the tree of us heard a small “pop”. The ranger (whose name I feel terrible about forgetting) immediately diagnosed the problem as a flat tire, and set about to fixing it, as Andréa and I joined him outside the car and made conversation. Just as the topic of mountain lions came up though, Andréa screamed. Terrified that the mountain lions had finally found us, I turned around, fully expecting to come face to face with a snarling, pissed off, mountain feline.
When I turned around to face the threat, confusion once again gave way to resolve - a Black Widow had climbed out from inside the car, out the mostly open window, and had come to a halt about two inches from my right shoulder. The ranger noticed the spider too, and quickly moved to pick it up, in the hopes of getting it on to a plant and away from the car. This spider however, proved to be even more aggressive that the last one - it skirted the ranger’s incoming fingers, and promptly bit his right index finger, right above the fingernail. As he recoiled, I realized that I’d had enough - I took off a shoe, and smashed the evil little critter into oblivion. As I did so however, something unexpected happened - it exploded into dozens of little black dots, each of which scurried hastily away from the dead Widow’s corpse.
In a flash, Andréa and I realized that the little black dots were babies - I’d just killed a mother of seventy-two, and the babies had now taken over the car. There were entirely too many to kill, and as they swarmed the truck, the ranger placed a call for a new truck to pick us up. He reasoned that his truck had become so inundated baby Black Widows that it probably wasn’t safe to drive anymore. Thankfully, he was fairly good natured about the whole thing.
It was at about this point when Andréa and I decided that it was probably going to be best to cut our losses and just drive home once we got the car fixed. I’m still a pained and dizzy from the bite, and more than a little embarrassed about my fractured thumb, while Andréa probably wants to put as much distance between herself and this Black-Widow infested state as possible.
Something tells me that I’m not going to see her for at least another five years. Haha. I have to give Nick super-special props for keeping me distracted with book talk on the agonizingly long drive back. Thanks! :)
...On a sadder note though, my newly sustained injuries will mean that I'm going to be unfit to drive until further notice. That essentially means that unless you folks are going to be able give me a ride to anything that we've made plans for, those plans are going to have to be postponed until I've healed. Sorry. :(