← Previous Post: | Next Post:

 

250 Miles of Visibility at the Grand Canyon Today…

… and weather so warm we stripped down to one layer.

UD sat in the winter sun well away from the edge as Mr UD followed our guide to the rim.

Light wind. Supremely clear sunlight. Tibetan temples abounding.

The soft shadowy green plateaus looked like Scotland.

Our guide talked about a mountain lion that somehow got itself down to the bottom of the canyon, where there aren’t any elk. It was an object of interest for awhile, but when it began gazing at hotel guests through their windows, it had to be shot.

Plenty of stories too – natch – about mishaps, missteps, mischancings. A woman whose family had to talk her into taking a mule died when the animal had a heart attack and collapsed, throwing her down the canyon. Our guide, last year, witnessed – along with many others – a suicide off the cliff. “He dove. He put his arms out and dove.”

UD watched with amazement as people frolicked inches from the fall.

“What does the Grand Canyon makes you think about?” our guide asked me.

“You know Freud’s theory of the death wish? That.”

Margaret Soltan, January 10, 2012 7:43PM
Posted in: snapshots from sedona

Trackback URL for this post:
https://www.margaretsoltan.com/wp-trackback.php?p=34474

6 Responses to “250 Miles of Visibility at the Grand Canyon Today…”

  1. Janet Gool Says:

    Dear Margaret,
    You didn’t think about Thelma and Louise?

  2. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Janet: I didn’t! I should have.

  3. Nora Says:

    I worked at the Grand Canyon over 30 years ago. A number of people do die there every year by falling in. We used to call it “going over the rim.” I once won a euphemism contest with that saying.

  4. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Nora: It must have been amazing to work there.

    I don’t know if you know about this book. Our guide told us about it.

  5. Nora Says:

    I’ve heard of the book. Do they sell at the Visitor Center?

  6. Margaret Soltan Says:

    I think so – but it’s more expensive there…

Comment on this Entry

UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes

As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls

Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte

Archives

Categories