Adventures in Shoes
I met my daughter at the Phoenix airport for a spring break adventure.
The next morning Zoe and I were picked up at our hotel at 7:20 a.m. and driven to a small airport. I was wearing the Patagonia Release. Zoe was wearing the Keen H2. By 8:15 we were on a small airplane on our way to the Havasupai Indian Reservation on the edge of the Grand Canyon. Shortly thereafter we found ourselves in a small helicopter on the way down to the Colorado River.
Our next couple of hours was spent on a small boat with our Havasupai guide and a family of three from Portland. The bearded father reminded me of my brother Jeff. Their teenage Chinese son was wearing Vibram Five Fingers, which have dramatically increased in popularity at our shops during the past year. Going back up to the rim, as the helicopter climbed and climbed the 4,000 feet, I could only think of reading “The Little Engine That Could” to Zoe, 18 years before.
The afternoon included hiking, Havasupai cuisine and a walk on this crazy horseshoe-shaped glass bridge that the Indians and a guy from Taiwan built 4,000 feet above the canyon. I walked a couple of feet out on it but Zoe went all the way around.
The return trip to Phoenix was beautiful -- the sun was setting over the canyons and desert. With dust from the canyon still visible on Zoe’s Keens and my Patagonias, we agreed that adventures are always better in comfortable shoes.
-Richard