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americanguide: SUNRISE TO SUNSET AT GRAND CANYON -...

Sun, 19 May 2013 07:51:00 -0600

americanguide:

SUNRISE TO SUNSET AT GRAND CANYON - ARIZONA

National Park Week - April 20-28, 2013

There is no better place to accidentally find yourself during the National Park Service’s free week than the second most visited park, Grand Canyon.

With nearly 5 million visitors a year, Grand Canyon is as good for its people watching as it is for the view itself. You can go a long time without hearing a single word of English, but easily make out that everyone has the same mix of marvel and disbelief as they walk up the trail to Mather Point and catch their first glimpse of the South Rim.

The dark pines of the Kaibob National Forest conceal the Grand Canyon of the Colorado till the rim is reached. There, spread out for seemingly endless miles, is an ocean of color. From misty blue depths rise gigantic islands of crimson sandstone. Their undulating bands of red and purple grow softer in color and outline towards the horizon, where a single firm stroke seems to separate the rosy depths from the sky above. Its immensity is awful; the boldness of its contours overwhelming; its immobility terrifying.

—Arizona, The Grand Canyon State: A State Guide (WPA, 1940)

Guide Note: National Park Week occurs each spring.

* * *

At-Large Guide to the West James Orndorf was born in Minnesota, but knew at a very young age that the future lay out west. He is currently photographing and illustrating outside of Durango, Colorado. You can see what he’s up to atinlandwest.tumblr.com and roughshelter.com.

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Sun, 19 May 2013 07:49:35 -0600

This nice little butterfly hatched from the mysterious pupa case...

Sun, 19 May 2013 07:48:18 -0600

This nice little butterfly hatched from the mysterious pupa case on the back door.

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Sun, 19 May 2013 07:44:55 -0600

inlandwest: textless in mirror are closer than they appear

Sun, 19 May 2013 07:43:24 -0600

inlandwest:

textless in mirror are closer than they appear

textless: Somewhere over the west “I really don’t know one...

Sun, 19 May 2013 07:40:39 -0600

Grand Canyon from above.

Snowy mountains near Portland, OR.

Irrigation circles somewhere in Arizona.

Suburban Phoenix from above.

Control tower at Phoenix Sky Harbor (which is a weirdly awesome name for an airport).

Close to home, over the Four Corners. Each little bare spot is a well pad for natural gas production.

textless:

Somewhere over the west

“I really don’t know one plane from the other. To me they are all just marginal costs with wings.”

-Alfred Kahn, airline economist (1917-2010)

Commercial air travel has changed a lot over the years. Since the US airline industry was deregulated in 1978, fares have dropped and lots more people have been flying. Airlines have merged and morphed and vanished. The rise of hub-and-spoke airline systems means that a major delay at one important airport can ripple across the country for days.

What hasn’t changed is the incredible vastness and variety of the country you see out the window. On a recent round trip from southern Colorado to Portland, Oregon (via Phoenix), I saw the Grand Canyon and the Colorado river valley, tract housing as far as the eye could see, and irrigation circles laid out like giant board games in the desert. I saw dormant volcanoes in Oregon and a bird’s eye view of the oil fields of the San Juan Basin in northwest New Mexico.

Commercial flight is the only way most of us will ever get to see those wide, wide views. Every time I fly, those views remind me of all the thousands of places in the US that I haven’t been to yet. And that takes the sting out of the scores of little annoyances along the way.

Because wow, America.

—-

Read about the history of commercial flight in the US at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s America By Air exhibit.

Read about Alfred Kahn, who headed up the Civil Aeronautics Board that oversaw airline deregulation, in his obituary from The Economist (January 20, 2011).

—

This is an entry for The American Guide.

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Sat, 18 May 2013 19:54:52 -0600

No money or drugs.

Sat, 18 May 2013 19:53:06 -0600

No money or drugs.

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