Road Trip Out West

Jim n Katie Patterson took me and Dottie Moffett to Las Vegas from Red River, New Mexico in their Ford LTD.

We drove via Colorado where we caught a steam train from Durango north to Silverton.

Then we drove through Utah, visiting Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park:

In Vegas we stayed at The Stardust on The Strip. It boasted (natch) the ‘biggest neon sign in the world!’ I learnt to gamble. I learnt to win. I battled to lose. Dottie was a good luck charm! I kept on and on gambling, determined to lose, but enjoying the free drinks as long as were seated at a table. Finally as dawn approached we were $10 down. We’d paid our dues and could go to bed.

Jim n Katie took us to a show! We saw Joan Rivers being delightfully rude and Petula Clark warbling away – also Joan warbled a bit and Pet told a joke! I saw Jim slip the doorman a cri$p note to get us good seats! We got great seats.

After Vegas we stopped off at The Grand Canyon: We stared down at this awesome sight from the lookout on the south rim. We only had a few hours there, so we were just look-see tourists. Suddenly I couldn’t stand it! I just had to get down there. I started running down the Bright Angel trail. It’s about 10km to the river. I’d give myself an hour, I thought. Dottie went with me. She was fit as a fiddle – she was ranked no.2 tennis player in Oklahoma at the time. The run was easy on a well-maintained track with the only real obstacle being the ‘mule trains’. Every now and then we’d have to step off the trail and let a bunch of mules pass, sometimes with a steep drop inches away. We made sure we were always on the upside!

At first it was all open desert trail, but at Indian Gardens I was surprised by the amount of greenery in the Canyon. From the rim it looks like all desert, but in the protected gorges there was water, green shrubbery and even some tall trees.

In about an hour I got to just above the river. I stared in awe at the swiftly-moving blue-green water. I had never seen such a large volume of clear water flowing like that. Our South African rivers mostly run small and muddy and I wasn’t expecting clear water. Right then I thought I MUST get onto this river! I’d been kayaking for a few years, but if I’d been asked I’d probably have said on a raft, little knowing that eleven years later I would kayak past that very spot, under that same bridge in 1984 on a flood-level river! *(see footnote below)*

The hike back out was steep, but hey, I was 18yrs old! Cross-country running had been my favourite obsession the year before, so no (or an acceptable amount of) sweat!

Then we headed home by and large followed the old historic Route 66 – the new I40. Flagstaff Arizona, Albuquerque New Mexico, Amarillo Texas, back to Oklahoma. Me to Apache and the delightful Dottie on to Ardmore.

I learned later:

• They tell you Do Not try to hike from the rim to the river and back in one day!
• The 10km climb down Bright Angel is about 1000m vertically, and every metre you’re going back about 100 000 years in geological time!
• The name Colorado was for its muddy colour and its clarity is in fact an undesirable artifact because of Glen Canyon Dam upstream;
• Jim Patterson has since hiked rim to rim through the canyon a number of times – he made it an annual pilgrimage. The last I heard was when he was 70!

These pics off the ‘net – I’ll add my own when I find them! –

~~~oo0oo~~~

*footnote* – Eleven years later, in ’84, I arrived under that bridge in my kayak:

– our group’s rafts under the same bridge, eleven years later – our kayaks on the left –

The level was high, and the Little Colorado poured brown floodwaters into the Colorado, so the water wasn’t running clear, but it sure was running!

~~~oo0oo~~~

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