The Grand Canyon felt like an experience of a lifetime. The colors melded into shadows as the canyon seem to go down and out forever, like a mosaic. But my time had to end there. One thing about national parks is that the larger ones are so well known that often the others get overlooked, there are after all over 60 national parks in the country. Arizona is home to three including the Grand Canyon. One is Petrified Forest National Park, a desert filled with calcified logs of wood turned into swirling gems of color. Unfortunately, I did not get to go there. It was farther north, and we did not have the time to do it. Although not far from Pheonix is a city named Tucson. Tucson among other things is sandwiched between two halves of a national park. This majestic desert park is called Saguaro National Park, named after the giant cacti, that populate the area.  

Tucson is a two-hour drive from Pheonix but after the four-hour drive to the Grand Canyon it felt like nothing. Near the border of Mexico, Tucson is home to amazing Mexican food and The University of Arizona. Because of my family’s fanatical fascination with food, we were able to find the place that invented the chimichanga. A small restaurant with an old feel to it, but the food was amazing. I can still remember when they brought out the chimichanga steaming from the fryer straight to our table. Filled with hot sauce, beans, and so much more, it made anything else seem like a cheap imitation of this heavenly dish. It is hard to describe sometimes, these surreal experiences, but it felt like I was in history, which only got stronger with our next destination.  

Old Tucson is an old film studio that made westerns. With people like John Wayne filming movies there it is one of the most famous sites in the genre. Now open as a tourist destination, my sister could not wait to go. If you have ever seen Westworld, it is a show at least in the beginning, about people dressing up and going into a fake world, the world of the wild west. This is what it felt like. An old dusty road down the middle of the town was full of sand and some horses. On each side wooden buildings sat like they were hunching over from old age. People in costumes walked around pretending to be a part of what has become such an infamous American period. It is hard to describe it but there is something freeing about feeling like you’re in the wild west. In a world that has become so structured, it can be fun to just let go for a little bit, even if it’s all make believe.  

The Grand Canyon was not far from Sedona. The mythical village of red rocks was a shallow imitation of what the Grand Canyon would be. There are things that are so famous, that are talked about so much, that you start to think that they cannot be as great as people say they are.  The thing is, the Grand Canyon is better in some ways. When you think of architecture, you think of man-made objects. This thinking can make it hard to realize how much better of an architect nature is than any one person. As we drove towards the sign, I was excited. We were finally here. Small kitschy stores and hotels lined the road into the park, and a long line of cars was backed up right outside the entrance. Three narrow lanes let in a steady flow of traffic in a timely and organized manner. National Parks aren’t free. I think this can be forgotten, but a lot of the time you have to pay your way in. We did, and drove to the dusty parking lot. I could see the edge of the abyss from the car, but I did not really get a good glimpse.  

The parking lot was near the edge of the canyon itself. A small trail lined the edge going for what seemed like miles around. Families gathered around the edge and took selfies and hung their legs off the cliff face that led thousands of feet down. Daredevils walked a tightrope of rock around crumbling formations, worn down from millions of visitors. It is maybe the closest thing to a nightmare for someone who is afraid of heights. Or a better way to put it, it is a nightmare for my dad. Every time I tried to walk to the edge he would cringe and make me come back. I did get to go a few times, but his fear got the best of him. The trail down into the canyon is called the Angel Trail, and I wanted to go down for a while, but without my father, my mom didn’t want to go down far. I remember turning back in disappointment promising myself I would come back for this trail. 

Although the disappointment washed away as I took in the canyon. A vast bowl of gray and red rocks meshed together, a living, breathing, time capsule into the geological past. It is hard to comprehend what it is like. The wind near the edge gets stronger and you feel like you’re on top of some vast unknown world. There is something poetic to me that one of the most beautiful places in the world was not built in a number of years, but was worn and weathered over thousands, creating a masterpiece of all ages, not just our own.