Miles today: 0 - as someone else drove.
Miles to date: 5289.
Sedona's proximity to the Grand Canyon, made it a prefect jumping off point for a few days. Since I had racked up a chunk of mileage, I decided to take a bit of a break from the road and I traded the driver's seat in the little blue Audi for a captain's chair in the Pink Jeep Tours fancy pants tour vehicle:
Our tour guide took me and my 8 newest pals (from Tokyo, San Diego, Boston, and 2 locals) up through Flagstaff and to the South Rim of the canyon. Our guide chatted relentlessly, but proved informative and fairly non-threatening. It would be obvious to speak of the vastness of the canyon, but the most striking or humanizing aspect of my visit was the utter lack of depth perception / scale interpretation when looking over the rim and down at the Colorado river. A bridge 400 feet in length appears as but a speck. Trees of 100 feet in height look like mere saplings. Way points that look like an easy hike end up taking a full day to get to.
The lure of water / gold / farmland / mineral riches has proven just too tempting to too many civilizations. That this place has become an attraction is perhaps indicative of how little influence and control over this world we really have. Our hiking trails, mule paths, and visitor's centres are and will continue to be a mere temporary blight on this place as time tics on.
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