ROAD TRIP JOURNAL (Part 2)

Grand Canyon? Eh.

How did I end up on the road?

Well, I figured gas prices were low, might as well take my Chevy Tahoe on a summertime jaunt 3,000 miles across the country.

I wanted the trip to be spontaneous and adventurous. In planning it, I spent barely a day studying maps and getting my malaria vaccines.

But I ran into trouble on the second day. Just as I was blazing across the Arizona desert, a warning light went on in my car. I pulled over and spent the next 30 minutes with the hood up.

I was actually happy to put on a show of manliness on the side of the road as I leaned over the engine.

Passing drivers must've assumed this stud in the grease-stained muscle shirt was fixing the tranny or lubing the gears, whatever the hell that means.

Little did they know that I was spending half an hour looking for the damn dip stick.

I pulled back onto the road.

I watched as gas prices ticked up as I headed east: "$3.00" . . . "$3.25" . . . "Your 401k."

Apparently, there was some hurricane, and now there's a gas shortage. Girls in New Orleans have resorted to flashing guys not for beads, but gas cards.

All I know is that the cable news channels are devoting way too much time to this hurricane, when surely there's an attractive white girl missing somewhere.

I pulled into the campgrounds at the Grand Canyon as the sun sunk in the west. It was a relief being around other campers after my previous night by myself weeping quietly inside my tent.

I still wasn't sure of the etiquette involving nearby campers.

For instance, if I hear other campers making love at night, do I ignore it, or unzip their tent and climb in?

What's the protocol on building a bonfire in the buff?

I walked over to the canyon itself, which, if you haven't seen it, resembles a big hole in the ground. I was unimpressed.

I sat down on a bench and settled in for the far better attraction: the hundreds of tourists waddling off their buses and toward the canyon.

Apparently these folks hadn't seen a large hole before, let alone a grand one. They had to document this for the ages, snapping photos proclaiming to the world, "The McCalisters were here!"

The hundreds of snapshots would eventually be whittled down to a 1,200-image slide show to captivate their friends back home in Munster.

Of course, most of the photos had little to do with the canyon. It seems that the very first thing that people want to do when approaching an attraction like the Grand Canyon or the Eiffel Tower is to take pictures of themselves in front of it.

I'm sure that in many of the pictures you couldn't even see the canyon itself. The tourists surely filled the frame with their American flag t-shirts, jean shorts and matching hats reading, I HAD A HOLE LOT OF FUN AT THE GRAND CANYON.

Of course, I shouldn't be talking. I'm so narcissistic that on vacation I now like to pose for photos in front of photos of myself.







P.S. I've come to realize that many readers may take me too seriously. I exaggerate and make up many things, especially my impressions of the Grand Canyon.

Because really, when it comes to big holes in the ground, this one tops any list.



Next time, Part III: "Sleeping on the Cheap."