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.



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:



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