DMB Digest: Enjoy this, whether you like it or not.

Family Vacation

The irony sank in as I ran, alone, into the gale-force wind along the edge of the Grand Canyon with a cheesy smile pasted on my face and an awkward giddy-up in my step. The temperature hovered somewhere around freezing. Low clouds roiled just overhead. The entirety of my family sat glumly in the car, each of us enjoying our family vacation in his or her unique fashion.

I ran from viewing spot to viewing spot taking mental pictures, sucking in the cold air, and laughing to myself (causing Asian tourists to keep a wide birth at my passing).

By the end, this is what our family vacation had devolved into. Looking back, I may have made a few tactical errors in structuring the drive from Texas to Idaho. I lost my older son before the trip began. He’s a sullen teenager. That’s to be expected. The first stop on the way home was Carlsbad Canyon. This was my second time to visit. I totally geek out on stuff like this, so maybe I’m not the person to trust. But I think Carlsbad is freaking awesome. Seven-hundred-and-fifty feet below the surface, strolling through insane rock formations. Are you kidding me?

My older son’s take: “How much longer? Can I just meet you at the visitor center? Wow, more rocks.” I’ll admit, after driving six hours to get to the cavern during our prescheduled time slot for the self-guided tour, and then staring down my older son as he refused to get out of the car, I was tempted to say, “You’re gonna enjoy this, whether you like it or not.” The statement might have been just asinine enough to have worked. (After arriving home, the wife shared she had been consoled upon noticing the family on the path in front of us also suffered a detached, sullen teenager…who if fate would have caused to bump elbows with our sullen teenager surely they would have exchanged a knowing scowl and a head-nod before returning to their part.)

I lost my younger son the next afternoon when we arrived at the Grand Canyon amidst a massive frozen, fog bank. To his credit, he gave it a go. He simply wasn’t equipped to withstand the combination of high winds and freezing fog. After ten minutes at the main overlook, he was shivering and checked out.

Then the wife got hungry.

It was time to go. But, dagnabbit, this was my vacation too. And despite (in some ways because of) the fog and wind and cold, the view was insane. The lesser view points were mostly abandoned. The clock had struck 5:00pm. Tourists were packing it up in order to thaw by the fire or in a hot shower. And that’s how I ended up sprinting through viewpoints on the Grand Canyon’s edge, by myself, during my family vacation.

I pulled off the road. Parked the car. Left the engine running. And disappeared into the fog, cackling the whole way. Looking back, I might as well have left the car door open. I’m sure in my absence the wife rolled her eyes, threw all the remaining snacks at the children, and cracked open her Kindle reader. She surely knew my “I’ll be right back” meant I would be gone for at least thirty minutes. She also knew that after driving this whole way, I would be a sullen disaster if she didn’t allow me a few moments of “drinking in the artist lifestyle.”

What can I say? I have a higher threshold for misery than the rest of my family. I mean, the Grand Canyon is all about pushing boundaries. Appreciating the extreme. About seeing the ludicrousness of your frailty and smallness juxtaposed with this yawning chasm capable of swallowing entire cities of human vanity.

It makes me feel alive.

Back in the car, I pegged the speedometer at “wuh-oh” speed and delivered the family to New York Teriyaki in nearby Page, Arizona in the nick of time. A few steaming bowls of ramen put the crew back in their right minds. We laughed. We slurped noodles. The day had been rescued for everyone. I promise you, when I ask my kids about the trip months from now, New York Teriyaki on New Year’s Eve will be what they remember. Maybe that’s a good thing.

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