Hiroku by Laura Lascarso

Author:Laura Lascarso [Lascarso, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Laura Lascarso
Published: 2018-06-07T05:00:00+00:00

We got a late start the next morning because we wanted to have a hot breakfast before hitting the road. Also, I wasn’t a crack-of-dawn type person unless I had to be up for school. On the drive, Mai’s stomach was upset, so we kept stopping so she could relieve herself. I took over driving for a while because she felt so ill. I had my driver’s license, so it wasn’t illegal, but I hadn’t had much practice, so it was all a little surreal to me at first. Luckily the highway was pretty desolate, and there wasn’t much in the way of road signs or signaling. Mai napped in the passenger seat. Neil crooned about his cinnamon girl. And I lost myself in the desert landscape and all of the miles I was putting between Seth and me.

We arrived at the park just before sunset. Mai had had a sports drink and a granola bar and was feeling a little better. I parked at an overlook, and we got out to take a look at this supposedly Grand Canyon.

It stole my breath away.

“Wow,” Mai said.

“Yeah.”

“Wow,” she said again.

“Yeah.”

Pictures of the Grand Canyon actually don’t do it justice. I know that for a fact because I took a ton of them while we were there. It was one of those rare occasions when the hype didn’t come close to the actual experience. I struggled to find words to describe it without relying on the old tried and true clichés: “majestic” and “awe-inspiring.” But if I had to pick one, I would say in moments like that, gazing down upon that impossibly wide and impossibly deep rift in the earth was like seeing the hand of God. And I wasn’t even religious.

We stood there for a while on the South Rim of the canyon and watched the setting sun paint the rock walls different shades of reds and oranges, then pinks. And when the shadows seeped in, the canyon went from violet to indigo to black. Even in the dark, you could feel the great expanse of nothingness. The biggest, blackest hole I’d ever experienced.

“That was incredible,” Mai whispered. We were lying side by side on the flattened surface of a boulder. The first winking stars were coming out. I reached for her hand and squeezed. It was a moment.

We were supposed to camp in the park for the next couple of days, but I convinced Mai that we should hike down to the Colorado River and see for ourselves, the source of this wonder. Mai was nervous about that—neither of us having been exposed to particularly outdoorsy activities in our youth—but after some discussion with the park rangers, we were able to convince Mai that it was safe enough. I offered to carry the tent and the food to make her pack less heavy. Neither of us had hiking boots, but our tennis shoes would do the job. We set off at noon, ducked into a cave to escape a rainstorm, and made it to our campsite halfway down the ravine around nightfall.

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