Recently I took a trip with my wife and in-laws to the Grand Canyon. Here's some pics.
This is the road between Kingman and Grand Canyon West in Hualapai territory.
This was open range territory and cattle were grazing here and there. Not many, but enough you had to pay attention.
Branching up towards the Canyon itself.
A pic from the bus. Once at Grand Canyon West Airport where you park, you have to take shuttle to various points of interest.
A pic of the
Sky Walk. It's made of glass and you can stand on it and look straight down a 1,000 feet or more. I'm not afraid of heights, but honestly, it was a little freaky.
Some Indian dancing. Once on a trip through Navajo territory long ago with my wife (Japanese) we stopped at a Mickey D's. I'll never forget seeing her sitting across from some Native Americans. The resemblance was striking. The human story is fascinating.
Here I show my wife the housing that will be available in the post apocalyptic future.
The thing that's amazing about little shelters like this is how much they actually shelter you from the outside. It was pretty hot, but a solid 20 degrees cooler under this cover.
This is a sweat lodge. It was used for healing (men and women) and hanging out (men only). The Native Americans poured water over hot rocks to make steam and spent time praying to the Creator. Side Note: The wood selected for construction must not have been struck by lighting. They believed trees, among other things, possessed life force. They also believed Lighting was a great power, but if wood was struck by lightning it was considered to have its life force removed. Curiously the Japanese have a similar notion about life force permeating trees.
I've always had a little fascination with Native American cultures. In North America there were many and highly varied. . . . all lost to the sands of time. That's at least a little bit sad.
(
The Last of the Mohicans and especially
Black Robe, and even
Dances With Wolves are some pretty good, "recent", mainstream movies.)
Drama. Beauty.
Weather was highly and rapidly changeable. This wind kicked up out of nowhere in seconds and was fairly strong. One of the things I loved about this place, perhaps because it was on Indian territory was the rather substantial lack of nanny safety guards. See the picnic bench? Notice the edge? That's the edge of the canyon.
Here's the album for some more pics.