Strangecreature's Excellent Adventure: Days 3 & 4
Alright, I've moved into the new place all permanent-like now! (Drove past old-school cardboard-wrapped-in-tinfoil-weapon LARPers in my neighbourhood on the way over too! *delighted forever*) First day of work starts bright and early Monday morning... dun-dun-DUN! But I'm not a grown-up yet! D-:
BUT ONWARDS TO MORE CAPSLOCKY ADVENTURES!
We headed out towards the Grand Canyon bright and early, unabashedly thrilled to have survived the Worst Motel Ever unscathed.
Megan: "Ha! I'm casting a big old shadow by you!"
Dad: "What? I'm not in your shadow..."
Megan: "No, no, by you..."
Dad: "YOU ARE SILLY, THERE IS NO SHADOW."
Megan: "YOU'LL SEE THIS PICTURE AND YOU SHALL LAUGH!"
And then we got to the Grand Canyon. As one might suspect from the name, the aforementioned Canyon is... Grand. By which they secretly mean "VERY FUCKING TALL".
That's the first tiny little bit!!
Prairie-girl cannot comprehend this degree of canyon-itude!
And then... and then, we tried hiking down it. So. Okay, I got about twenty feet down and had a super freak-out. Like, clinging to the rocks hyperventilating and shaking so hard I was scared to move. Of course, I was giggling like a freak as well, since we'd come ALL THIS WAY at my own damn request, and now I was too scared to move??
Megan: "Oh, awesome, a picture of me in the midst of a panic attack..."
Dad: "I'm just waiting for you to acclimatize!"
Megan: "This is revenge for the shadow thing, isn't it?"
So we went back to the top and spent about four hours hiking along the rim instead. During this period, I was pissed at myself and my stupid brain and my entirely unexpected terror. However, a magical relationship was also forming... It was a love affair for the ages, an inseparable bond that could not be broken.
MEGAN/GUARDRAIL. *draws hearts around* So long as I had the guardrail in a death-grip, my brain stopped shrieking that I was going to topple into the abyss. They actually named one of the fuck-off big cliffs The Abyss, the bastards...
Ah, guardrail, precious guardrail...
Guardraaaaaail.
But then something happened that made me put my cliff-fear into perspective. Come on, you know me.
Oh yes.
So there we were, walking along... Okay, lies. My dad was walking along and I was inching along sideways, clutching my beloved guardrail and staring at my feet so as not to magically leap into the canyon by accident. And there, gliding up to my feet, was this dude.
THREE FEET LONG. I very calmly exclaimed "Oh! A snake!" and very calmly leapt up onto the guardrail behind me, suddenly rendered completely unconcerned about the frikkin' three-thousand-foot drop on the other side of said guardrail. (I went back later and peeked down and went a little dizzy at my stupidity!) My dad, who is the only person I know more afraid of snakes than me, exclaimed "HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIIT!" and snapped a picture as two big burly dudes came down the path towards us.
"Um, there's a snake!" I called up to them, "I'm just having a moment of snake-a-phobia, sorry!" (Yes, actual quote there. I was panicking!)
"Is it a rattler?" one guy asked, freezing in his tracks.
"I don't know!" says I, peering very closely at the snake's tail, "I don't think it has a rattle, but I'm from Canada! That's why I'm up here on the guardrail!"
"Shit, I'm from Arizona and they scare the shit outta me!" says the guy.
At which point, the snake started coming towards the guardrail, so I gracefully fled the scene and left the dudes to deal with it. X-D (Don't worry: I asked a ranger about it later, and they assured me it was a Gopher Snake. Same colouring and behaviours as a rattler, but no venom. Whew! Also, the guys made it past just fine, although they ran too. *snerk*)
There were also LIZARDS!
For your information, I happen to be King of the Lizards. No joke. One of them came up to us during lunch and was mooching, so I said "Little dude, I've seen Jurassic Park 2, so I'm not going to do anything awful to you, but you're freaking me out. Could you leave us alone while we're eating?" AND THEN IT LEFT. Who knew?
"It's good fun, for a hermit..."
Don't be fooled, the Grand Canyon is actually a beautiful place when you're not angry at it for scaring you!
Artsy-fartsy...
SECOND DAY! Things went much better. I had either acclimatized to the view or was just mad enough at myself to get past my terror.
Still very good friends with available guardrails though!
So at this point, we decided to make a second attempt at hiking down the cliffs into the canyon. (Yes, I own a pair of shorts. Don't look at my legs.) This attempt went QUITE WELL.
THE CLIFFS I CLIMBED DOWN: LET ME SHOW YOU THEM.
Mocking the "You Will Get Heat Exhaustion And Die" warning signs. While simultaneously obtaining karmic sunburn. X-D
Mule train!!
Sun setting...
... setting...
Night!
Conclusion: Grand Canyon is absolutely gorgeous, but also very scary. Further conclusion...
I CLIMBED TO THERE, MOTHERFUCKERS! X-D
Next up: Last day in the States! Walking the entire length of the Vegas strip! The real insanity kicks in!
BUT ONWARDS TO MORE CAPSLOCKY ADVENTURES!
We headed out towards the Grand Canyon bright and early, unabashedly thrilled to have survived the Worst Motel Ever unscathed.
Megan: "Ha! I'm casting a big old shadow by you!"
Dad: "What? I'm not in your shadow..."
Megan: "No, no, by you..."
Dad: "YOU ARE SILLY, THERE IS NO SHADOW."
Megan: "YOU'LL SEE THIS PICTURE AND YOU SHALL LAUGH!"
And then we got to the Grand Canyon. As one might suspect from the name, the aforementioned Canyon is... Grand. By which they secretly mean "VERY FUCKING TALL".
That's the first tiny little bit!!
Prairie-girl cannot comprehend this degree of canyon-itude!
And then... and then, we tried hiking down it. So. Okay, I got about twenty feet down and had a super freak-out. Like, clinging to the rocks hyperventilating and shaking so hard I was scared to move. Of course, I was giggling like a freak as well, since we'd come ALL THIS WAY at my own damn request, and now I was too scared to move??
Megan: "Oh, awesome, a picture of me in the midst of a panic attack..."
Dad: "I'm just waiting for you to acclimatize!"
Megan: "This is revenge for the shadow thing, isn't it?"
So we went back to the top and spent about four hours hiking along the rim instead. During this period, I was pissed at myself and my stupid brain and my entirely unexpected terror. However, a magical relationship was also forming... It was a love affair for the ages, an inseparable bond that could not be broken.
MEGAN/GUARDRAIL. *draws hearts around* So long as I had the guardrail in a death-grip, my brain stopped shrieking that I was going to topple into the abyss. They actually named one of the fuck-off big cliffs The Abyss, the bastards...
Ah, guardrail, precious guardrail...
Guardraaaaaail.
But then something happened that made me put my cliff-fear into perspective. Come on, you know me.
Oh yes.
So there we were, walking along... Okay, lies. My dad was walking along and I was inching along sideways, clutching my beloved guardrail and staring at my feet so as not to magically leap into the canyon by accident. And there, gliding up to my feet, was this dude.
THREE FEET LONG. I very calmly exclaimed "Oh! A snake!" and very calmly leapt up onto the guardrail behind me, suddenly rendered completely unconcerned about the frikkin' three-thousand-foot drop on the other side of said guardrail. (I went back later and peeked down and went a little dizzy at my stupidity!) My dad, who is the only person I know more afraid of snakes than me, exclaimed "HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIIT!" and snapped a picture as two big burly dudes came down the path towards us.
"Um, there's a snake!" I called up to them, "I'm just having a moment of snake-a-phobia, sorry!" (Yes, actual quote there. I was panicking!)
"Is it a rattler?" one guy asked, freezing in his tracks.
"I don't know!" says I, peering very closely at the snake's tail, "I don't think it has a rattle, but I'm from Canada! That's why I'm up here on the guardrail!"
"Shit, I'm from Arizona and they scare the shit outta me!" says the guy.
At which point, the snake started coming towards the guardrail, so I gracefully fled the scene and left the dudes to deal with it. X-D (Don't worry: I asked a ranger about it later, and they assured me it was a Gopher Snake. Same colouring and behaviours as a rattler, but no venom. Whew! Also, the guys made it past just fine, although they ran too. *snerk*)
There were also LIZARDS!
For your information, I happen to be King of the Lizards. No joke. One of them came up to us during lunch and was mooching, so I said "Little dude, I've seen Jurassic Park 2, so I'm not going to do anything awful to you, but you're freaking me out. Could you leave us alone while we're eating?" AND THEN IT LEFT. Who knew?
"It's good fun, for a hermit..."
Don't be fooled, the Grand Canyon is actually a beautiful place when you're not angry at it for scaring you!
Artsy-fartsy...
SECOND DAY! Things went much better. I had either acclimatized to the view or was just mad enough at myself to get past my terror.
Still very good friends with available guardrails though!
So at this point, we decided to make a second attempt at hiking down the cliffs into the canyon. (Yes, I own a pair of shorts. Don't look at my legs.) This attempt went QUITE WELL.
THE CLIFFS I CLIMBED DOWN: LET ME SHOW YOU THEM.
Mocking the "You Will Get Heat Exhaustion And Die" warning signs. While simultaneously obtaining karmic sunburn. X-D
Mule train!!
Sun setting...
... setting...
Night!
Conclusion: Grand Canyon is absolutely gorgeous, but also very scary. Further conclusion...
I CLIMBED TO THERE, MOTHERFUCKERS! X-D
Next up: Last day in the States! Walking the entire length of the Vegas strip! The real insanity kicks in!