Published: August 22, 2008 12:09 pm         

A grand vacation to the canyon

The Wolfsies have returned from a weeklong vacation to the Grand Canyon.  It’s the only place in America where you’re allowed to drag your kid to the precipice of one of the world’s deepest chasms, but they put you in the slammer if you feed a squirrel.

Any aspirations our small family had about making the descent to the bottom were squashed when I went into a gift shop on the South Rim. I asked the clerk to recommend a book about this National Park. Hold on to your hat — actually, hold on to anything you can. The number one seller is: “Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon.” What a charming choice for fans of light summer reading.

The authors do not restrict their colorful travelogue to unscheduled plunges to the bottom. They want you to know that with a little bit of poor planning, you can also die of dehydration or starvation. Rattlesnake bites, driving off the edge and eating poisonous plants are more fun options to choose from.

Writers Myers and Ghiglier want you to know how safe the Canyon is if you are careful, but the book seems oddly misplaced in the gift shop so close to, well, the edge. There aren’t pamphlets relating the history of scaldings on the counter of McDonald’s or brochures about whimsical power tool mishaps attached to your chain saw purchases. I’m glad they didn’t think of this unique marketing gimmick when the Pinto was hot (so to speak).

There are many other entertaining chapters in the book: bear attacks, drowning and rock slides, to name a few. So many ways to buy the farm and still enjoy the grandeur of nature. Maybe I’m an optimist, but I look at it this way: Just a few hundred deaths in 6 million years. That’s not a bad record.

You want to hear more, don’t you? In one touching chapter a man makes tea for his wife out of a deadly canyon flower, and they both die within minutes. In another section, a woman tries to pet a mountain lion. There’s clearly a fine line between bad luck and stupidity.

Then there’s the elderly couple who got lost in their 1996 Taurus on a back road. They were found dehydrated, but still alive. They had no water, but a week’s supply of Depends. I’d call that ironic.

The chapter on suicide makes it clear this really is the place to go if you have a flair for the dramatic. It is rumored that one guy who met his maker by diving off a cliff had complained at the gate that the entry fee was exorbitant and he would never come back again. No idle threat there.

Travelers from abroad love the Grand Canyon. Europeans winter in Arizona. Asians summer in the Canyon. Americans usually fall there. About 600 feet. That’s just an average, though; your actual plummet may vary.

The beauty of the Grand Canyon is overwhelming, and we really did have a great time. When we left, I packed the trunk full of water and drove very slowly along the winding roads, our GPS leading the way. I enjoyed that book, but I didn’t want to be in the second edition.

Dick Wolfsie is a television news reporter, syndicated humor columnist and author. He can be reached at Wolfsie@aol.com