In the summer of 1984, I was a camper at Brigadude when Ghostbusters came out. I lived in Spruce Lodge, and I heard all about the movie from letters and visitors to camp. By the time I got home, it was out of the theaters. For the rest of the summer and through the start of school, I had to listen to other people talk about the FUNNIEST MOVIE EVER and admit that I had not seen it. I had to wait for it to come on to HBO. When it finally did, I learned a new word: meh. It was not so funny.
So, when everyone who heard I was driving across the country said, “Oh, you MUST see the Grand Canyon” I pulled a preemptive meh. Not that I was not going to the Grand Canyon, but I was prepared for it to not live up to the hype; therefore, I was unprepared for the reality of the Grand Canyon. I have heard it said that pictures cannot capture the grandeur of the Grand Canyon, and pictures from a disposable Fuji camera fail completely. The shear magnitude of the place — it’s really a lot of canyons coming together at the main channel of the Colorado River — is humbling. It’s also like a fractal pattern which is beautiful in detail and in whole, and which seems to reproduce itself at each new perspective. In other words, Ghostbusters has a hype to reality index of 3 while the Grand Canyon gets a 10.
Being in the neighborhood, it seemed wrong not to visit the Asheville of the west: Sedona, Arizona. This is a place from which people move to Asheville because “Sedona is too flaky.” The fact that my spellchecker wants to change “Sedona” to “Seconal” may indicate the level of cognition being practiced here. Or maybe not. I mean, they do manage to have grocery stores and gas stations and all things necessary to the normal function of life. And it is obviously a beautiful place, if you are into deserts.
The most surprising thing to me was that it was not that hot. Well, Sedona was hot, but getting there not so much. Flagstaff is at 6,900 feet and Sedona is at 4,500. The drop down through Oak Creek Canyon provides a shaded route with the eponymous creek providing a pleasant drive. It’s a bit like the section of Highway 70 along the French Broad River between Hot Springs, NC and Newport, TN. That’s one of those places which, every time we drive through, I say to my Sweet Lady, “It sure would be nice to have a house out here.” This kind of talk makes her think I may be crazy. She loves me anyway.