Arizona Finale; the Grand Canyon

Occhiolism; the awareness of the smallness of your perspective, by which you couldn't possibly draw any meaningful conclusions at all, about the world -- because although your life is an epic and unrepeatable anecdote it still only has a sample size of one and may end up being the control for a much wilder experiment happening in the next room.

This is the closest word I could find for how I felt when I first saw the Grand Canyon. I knew it was big and when I saw photos they almost looked like paintings but when I walked up to the edge of the canyon for the first time, I realized just how small of a part of this huge canyon I was seeing and how the vastness made it look like a painting even when you're standing in front of it.

It was one of those moments where I felt the enormity of the world and the absolutely miniscule amount of space and effect I have. It was overwhelming and beautiful to feel completely dwarfed by the world in that moment. Then I moved along so I wouldn't go all existential, ha!

We visited the southern rim of the Grand Canyon that morning, getting in there by 8 AM when there was almost no one there. We walked along the rim seeing only a few people until we got to the visitor center at the end. It was crazy how unreal it all felt and looked. But by the time we had checked out the visitor center people were flooding the paths and the awe of the sheer size of the canyon was starting to fade a bit. It was so beautiful to see and I definitely want to go back. When I do, it'll be to backpack down to the river and then back up to get a different perspective that is ever changing as I walk through the canyon instead of around it.

A fun discovery we had was the elk. I had encountered elk before along the Oregon coast (stepped out of my car at night and was surrounded by them. A wild story for another time) which were huge and magnificent. The ones at the Grand Canyon were still very big but decidedly less majestic. It was warm enough and late enough in the season that it was molting season and they looked like they had all gotten into a rather ugly bar brawl where they all had half their hair ripped out. It was amusing to say the least. Of course they're still big animals not to be messed with but it was a surprising contrast to those I saw in Oregon.

Due to the tunnel fire just north of Grand Canyon we ended up rerouting our drive back and instead of going up north and cutting over we went back through California then took I-5 back home. The whole trip was beautiful and eye opening and wonderful. I relished in enjoying some time after that trip before I left a little over a week later for Glacier National Park where I had many more fun wildlife run ins.

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