arizona 2:3

Around two that afternoon we began passing signs for the Grand Canyon, and the kids began bellyaching about seeing it. No, I said for the sake of resistance, but I wanted to see it, too, although I'd been as a child. They started singing a song that went Grand CAN-YON, Grand Canyon big and wide, big and wide. Those were the only words they knew, and they sang them over and over until I said okay. At the gate, though, they wanted ten dollars for a carload, ten dollars I did not have in cash. I had a gas card nine dollars short of its limit, but that was it. We can't go in, I told the kids. I'm going to die not having seen the Grand Canyon, said Jill. That was all she said. Jack looked bleak as well. These are not my kids, I thought, and that might have soothed me if I didn't want to go myself. So seeing the open gate in the ranch fence on the drive back towards Williams, I turned onto the dirt track running obliquely back north.

move on...