I have 45 minutes to sleep in the car. It’s 6:45 am Arizona time but really all that means is it’s 7:45 am anywhere else. I’ve been up since 4:30 am Utah time. That’s 3:30 am Arizona time but the sun came up an hour later across both states. Arizonans slept through it, some Utahans were on the road to see it. Otherwise, I was alone. The only car, the only noise, only human for miles around. The sun was still tucked beneath the ridges of the horizon as I flew across the Kaibab Indian Reservation towards Fredonia. A left turn would take me to Utah, to Kanab, leaping ahead in time. A right turn would keep me in Arizona, heading straight into the north rim of the Grand Canyon, still safe in the early morning hours.
The haze of dawn is a new mask upon the area I’ve come to know as Cane Beds, AZ. I’ve seen it at 2 am when the moon was my only company, at mid day when the mesas are their reddest, in late morning, in late evening, and at night before the moon rises when it’s so dark it’s disorienting. But once your pupils dialate—oh man—you’ve never seen so many stars.
But despite all the before mentioned beauty, the mesas at dawn has been my favorite. With light peaking over the horizon it casts a glow upon the land like a black light. The scrub becomes fluroescent the way the ground at home looks when it’s early and everything is wet with dew. But here the earth is as dry as bone, water is far too precious to cast upon the surface of the leaves like a cloak. The desert vegetation creeps half way up the mesa until the mountain takes a sharp vertical incline. The glow rests around the waist of the mountain and becomes its pleated skirt flowing out around it. The top of the mesa is still jet black against the morning light. The rocks cling to sleep not ready to wake yet. The whole landscape is sleepy and quiet. Jack rabbits and desert mice skip across the path.
I push toward the Grand Canyon, Arizona time. The landscape shifts again, it flattens out and the mesas turn behind me. As I climb in elevation, the tempartures drop and the world becomes green. There are no more reds and desert browns. Everything is green and dark, snow is on the ground, and the deer are alert and playful. They gather in wide meadows with their graceful necks down sloping towards the ground. Maybe this isn’t Arizona, maybe I fell asleep and headed north. Surely this landscape is more akin to Oregon or Seattle. It is May but I can’t keep warm, the snow skirts around evergreen trees and the edges of the ponds are ringed with ice. But the landscape is alive and moving and it’s comforting to move through it–with it.
The Grand Canyon National Park doesn’t open until 8:30 am Utah time or 7:30 Arizona time. People say no one uses Arizona time, they don’t use Daylight Savings so half the year they’re an hour behind their neighbors. It seems silly to not use Arizona time while in Arizona but so close to the border of Utah you can easily time travel 3 or 4 times a day. To be honest no one really ever knows what time it is. But the sun comes up hours before I wake, it heats the earth before I step out of bed. The fauna and flora see it everyday before I do. They have the morning to themselves before we, a noisy human group, take it from them. Arizona or Utah time, I can wait. The park will open and I will see the canyon when it does. It’s waiting for me, 7:30 or 8:30 it doesn’t matter, it will be there.
Me (right) and my sister (left) at the North rim!
The Way U Carry It 