The Day I met the Prince of the Forest
I woke up this morning with a start, my eyes darted to the clock radio on the nightstand to realize that I was an hour late for check out. I phoned the front desk to find out that if I checked out before the maid cleaned my room then I wouldn't be charged for another day. I spent the next 40 minutes frantically packing up my things. Since I basically live in hotel rooms for a month at a time, I like to have the comforts of home with me, meaning that I bring more than most college freshmen take to their dorms. After cart loads, I was finally all packed and ready to go...ready to go where? The plan was to find a hotel in the west valley of Phoenix that was more affordable than the $130 a night room provided on the company tab. After two blocks I had a thought and I immediately perked up, The Grand Canyon! I called a friend that I had made in the six weeks I had been in Phoenix and asked how to get to the there. After a short interrogation, he told me to take I-17 to Flagstaff, pick up 40 west bound and follow the signs.
Minutes after getting onto the interstate, a tumbleweed blew across the highway in front of me and in my head I could hear the soundtrack of a 60's western. I laughed at myself and turned up the radio, classic rock, and settled in for my 4 hour drive. I sang REO speed wagon, Stevie Ray Vaughn, AC/DC and Lynard Skynard at the top of my lungs as I zipped past cactus plants and desert rock that stretched out into the horizon. As I continued to climb northward and into higher elevation, my radio station went to static and so I switched over to Country Radio and as the miles on my trip odometer climbed up, the temperature outside my window dipped lower. Before long I was entranced by falling snow, and white dusted pine trees. I love how shy snow is! Rain is bold, dropping from the sky to fall on your windshield in big SPLATS, but snowflakes are much more elusive. They will zoom straight toward you, and then at the second before impact will go up and over the car, never connecting with the windshield.
As I pondered the different personalities of precipitation I noticed deer/elk signs along the highway and tried to recall if an elk looked more like a moose or like a deer, and it was just moments later that I found my answer, as I saw an Elk in the median, grazing on frozen tundra. I was so jonesed about it that I had to call and tell someone. The first person that answered their phone was my sister, and I screamed into the phone, "It's snowing, like snowing snowing and I saw an Elk and I'm going to the Grand Canyon!!!" It took awhile to repeat it several more times much much slower before she realized the three separate statements I was attempting to convey. She was not nearly as excited as I wanted her to be, so she put mama on the phone who could appreciate my silly joy. Mama was excited for me, but also concerned that I was traveling in the snow, so I naturally down played the severity of the situation which I am pretty sure is in my contract as a daughter. After a few more conversations, I finally get to Highway 64, which takes me right into the Grand Canyon National Park. I am desperately trying to beat the setting sun, because as a romantic there is nothing sweeter than the idea of my first glimpse of the Grand Canyon to be at sunset.
The Sun is barely still in the sky as I turn into the Park entrance, and it begins to snow again. By this point I am so giddy with anticipation that I am literally bouncing in my seat, although a little disappointed that it is dusk, and the clouds are bleeding gray all over my snow dusted forest. I turn into the very first place where there is a Parking sign and actually turn the ignition off before I put the car in park in my mad dash to get my first view of the Grand Canyon. I lock my car, throw on my hoody and half skip half walk down the trail to receive my first look at this incredible gorge. My breath catches, my eyes widen and I freeze at the enormity of what I see. Grand is not a big enough word, beautiful doesn't come close to what this is. I realize my breath is coming hard as if I have been holding it for a long time. It is snowing hard and the gray clouds are trying to blanket the canyon for the night. I walk the trail and every step is a new vantage point a fresh perspective on this thing that keeps surprising me with its beauty. You get this feeling like your are supposed to whisper in order to show reverence, when all you really want to do is scream. I did neither as I was doing a good job just to keep breathing, as I kept finding reasons to hold my breath.
The gray clouds kept sinking into the canyon as the evening got darker and quieter. I continued to follow the trail desperate to see as much as I could before the falling snow, and impending darkness stole it all from my sight. At a bend in the trail you get this amazing view that stops you in your tracks. I am not sure how long I stood there in that spot trying to memorize every peak and valley. Every color seems new to me and I can't believe I have gone my whole life without this experience. I suddenly realize that I should get out of the park before the snow gets much worse, and think suddenly that I am not sure exactly where the car is. I steal one more glance at the Canyon before turning on the trail to go back the way I came.
I stop short because directly in front of me on the walking trail is a young buck. He has his head tilted a little to the left and I wonder if he has been watching me or if he too has been captured by the magical view. He shakes his head and turns to walk beside the trail. I follow him, stopping to watch as he nibbles on this blade of grass or sniff at that tree branch. I can't believe this is happening and realize that nobody else will either without some kind of proof. I take out my camera phone and snap a couple of pictures of him, he doesn't seem to mind and I would almost swear that he posed like a pro for one of them. I keep following him as he meanders through the brush and think about how majestic he is, how regal. I think about the Disney movie Bambi and how Bambi's dad is the prince of the forest. I giggle at the thought that I just met Grand Canyon Royalty. I decide that if he had a name it would surely be something like Charles, William or Edmond. As I decide matter of factly on Edmond he steps out into the parking lot, 20 yards from my car. He stops to look at me for a moment, dips his head low as if to bow, and I will be damned if I didn't feel inclined to curtsy before he strolls across the parking lot and back into the brush, and as quickly as he appeared, he was gone. I stood still in the parking lot for a moment feeling very much like Snow White with my new wildlife friend. I get into my car to drive out of the park and to the hotel, and keep replaying it over and over in my mind. I know that today was a gift, an experience that I could never duplicate or fabricate. I am writing this now to make sure that I don't forget the details of this amazing day, the day I met the Prince of the Forest.
