29 June 2008

Mile 525: crashing at the Grand Canyon

I was only able to keep my speed down for so long, plus once the price of gas climbed down from its Southern California high point I felt a little more free to let my foot drop a little. The GTI is such a driver's car, and I just enjoyed feeling the open road. I didn't even play music at all that day, just watched the scenery change.

It was a little surprising to me how nice the high desert is. I was expecting kind of a blasted landscape, but there's actually a fair amount of green growth, and the hills are strikingly beautiful. There is an almost physical pleasure to looking out across broad vistas; maybe something about the eye focusing out as far as it can. We did evolve on the savanna, and probably there was a security and comfort to being able to see long distances.

Anyway: pretty.

I finally rolled into the environs of the Grand Canyon just as the sun was setting.

Sunset outside Tusayan

All the hotels near the park were filled up, and ridiculously expensive anyway. I turned around and headed for the crossroads town about 20 miles back, but not before seeing elk. Elk!! I didn't get a pic, since it was too dark for my little Cyber-Shot, but the sight of large mammals cheered me enormously.

There was plenty of room at the little Grand Canyon Inn in Valle. They even had low-cost singles in the "Motel," which is apparently under the same management. All I wanted was a bed, so I went for it, and $49 sounded pretty good at that hour.

This is what $49 gets you at the Grand Canyon:

My ghetto motel room

What you see is what I got - I mean, behind the door is a little toilet-shower and an ingenious combination of sink, dresser, and desk. And that's it. The ubiquitous TV, of course, but that was just an annoying waste of a corner to me.

I was tired, and loopy from the high altitude, and I just wanted to crash. I dropped off my overnight bag and went back out to the car to get my laptop. Rather than close the door and have to unlock it again, I left the door open, and left the key in the room.

You can see where this is going. I said I was loopy.

Fortunately, I had opened a window rather than run the Eisenhower-era air-conditioner, so it was a relatively simple matter to slip the screen and climb back in. I set my laptop on the sinkdresserdesk and got my contact lens kit out so I could give my eyes a rest.

Now, atmospheric pressure is closely approximated by the hydrostatic pressure caused by the weight of air above a given point. As elevation increases there is less overlying atmospheric mass, so that pressure decreases with increasing elevation. The pressure in a closed container - say, a bottle of contact lens cleaning solution - remains constant.

You can see where this is going.

After I cleaned up the contact lens fluid off the keyboard of my MacBook, I noticed that the mouse-click wasn't working anymore: it could only do "secondary-click" mode. Then, I noticed the keyboard itself wasn't working.

Epic fail.

I quickly powered the laptop down and turned on the ancient nuclear-powered air conditioner to try and reduce the humidity in the room to absolute minimum. Then, I spent a fidgety night trying to sleep in the super-arid, high-altitude environment, reflecting on how much I distract myself with technology. I had had this big plan to live-blog the trip, using Jott on my phone, Blogger Mobile and Wi-Fi hot spots, all so I could keep the few friends who follow my blog - most of whom I've been in regular contact with anyway - up to date on my latest twists and turns.

Maybe it was time to cut myself off for a while. And what better place to do it than at the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River?

I slept. Eventually. A little.

the trip so far

1 comment:

Diana said...

Well, I don't know what ended up happening with your keyboard; I guess I'll find out in your next post, but I can say that I spilled tea on my iBook not that long ago, and by morning, voila! it was fine.

I can't wait to see yer pics of the Grand Canyon. And, ditto re: your opinion of the high desert. Gorgeous, peaceful, inspiring, awe-full.