Wild Wild West
“That’s like a four hour drive, why not just go to Sedona for the day?” This seems to be the conventional response to anyone attempting a visit to the Grand Canyon while staying in Phoenix. In fact, my traveling companion and I heard this (or some variation thereof) so many times that by Friday, we had stopped telling people we were planning on driving all the way to the South Rim.
Sedona, with a population of 11,000, an annual rainfall of 19 inches, and the world’s only set of teal colored McDonald’s arches, is about an hour away from Phoenix. Yes, the Sedona awareness committee has certainly done its job in Phoenix. Everyone from the hotel concierge to the people we sat next to at the Diamondbacks game thought that; not only were we crazy to drive all the way to the Grand Canyon, but that we should consider Sedona to be an acceptable alternative. People told us all about the majesty of Red Rocks, the striking Western architecture, and the rich history of Native American traditions that can be found just an hour away in Sedona. They made it all sound so appealing.
Does Sedona deserve all the good press? Is it truly an acceptable substitute to one of the eight natural wonders of the world? Are the Burger King signs teal too? I wouldn’t know, I went to the Grand Canyon.
Superbore Me
For some people, it was as if we’d told them we were driving to the moon. Going someplace that was four hours away seemed that incomprehensible. I just don’t understand this. Now, if you had a daily commute that was four hours each way, well- you might want to look at that. If you were dating someone who lived four hours away, you’d no doubt have to eventually decide who was going to move when, and where. But a one-time eight hour trip to see a sight so fantastic that it was the focus of a three episode subplot on the Brady Bunch? I consider that eight hours well spent.
How many eight hour stretches of your life do you think you’ve forgotten? Accounting for sleep, which I also consider to be eight hours well spent, the average person has sixteen hours a day at their disposal. We spend some time working, some time eating, some time watching TV, some time driving, some time shopping, some time posting angry rants on the internet, with the rest of our time dedicated to “miscellaneous”. Day after day, week after week, year after year, we do the same things over and over again to the point that huge portions of our lives become amalgamated.
For example: I live about 20 minutes away from work. Over the past 8 years, I estimate that I’ve spent 1,280 hours commuting (that is: 240 days a year X 20 minutes each way X 8 years, and no, I never called out sick or took a vacation). All totaled, the daily commute memories I can easily access probably make up about 5 minutes. That is to say; if I were to think about things I remember from all of my daily commutes, play them in my head like a movie, the movie would last about 5 minutes. (Author’s Note: the movie would be rated PG-13 and be title “Apocalypse Now 2”. The role of “me” would be played by Matt Damon, or Samuel L Jackson depending on the availability and interest of each- but I digress).
The point is that over a 630,720 hour life, you’re going to have some forgotten time. Clearly, I’ve spent well over a thousand hours in a car, in recent memory, with nothing more than a paycheck and some random memories to show for it. What is the harm in driving another eight hours for something truly amazing?
Moreover, since we are not residents of Arizona, the drive itself was interesting. We saw enormous cactuses (the likes of which I had only seen in cartoons), beautiful desert landscapes, and something westerners call a “photo speed trap” (lazy asshole cops- I’m still waiting for my ticket in the mail).
Even with the “photo speed traps” the speed limit out there is 75 mph, which means that you can safely go 89 mph without worrying about a driving to endanger charge. We also rented a 2009 Dodge Charger for the day, which was worth a couple hours of entertainment as well. Of course we got the obligatory-on-all-road-trips McDonalds shakes from a proper McDonalds with “golden” colored arches, and we even ate spaghetti at a Mexican restaurant along the way. The whole drive was an absolute pleasure.
This really happened
So next time you’re in Phoenix, don’t listen to the naysayers who want to steer your hard earned tourism dollars to Sedona. Ignore their contemptuous looks when they hear your plan to visit the most spectacular vista in the land. And if they express concern about the four hour drive time, tell them if you rent a Charger, it’s really more like three.