Newsletter No. 15
July 28, 2019

Yesterday, we reached what has become the "end of the road" for 2019... the Grand Canyon. We started out in Flagstaff and took the "eastern" route to the Grand Canyon, up US-89 to AZ-64 into the Grand Canyon National Park. Before reaching Grand Canyon Village, we pulled over and snapped the photo of me and the Red One by the side of the road (and edge of the Canyon).
 
Lockett Lake: A few minutes before the photo above, we drove three miles down a gravel "fire road" to Lockett Lake. Back in 1919, this was THE road into the Grand Canyon from the south. C.K. would have ridden this road and I believe C.K. was describing Lockett Lake, a body of water he encountered after riding in the desert for eighty miles:

There was a wonderful lake bordered with giant pine trees, its waters still and flat like a great jewel. At its edge a few horses were drinking. It was such a magnificent sight that I was forced to stop to admire it to the full. I breathed a prayer that my little pocket camera would do it justice, and convey, if only a fraction, some of that entrancing charm that hung over its glassy waters.

The photo he took is included in the Fully Annotated Centennial Edition as Figure 182 and is also included below:

Although the water level was lower yesterday than it was 100 years ago, and we were unable to absolutely identify the identical landscape features, we agreed that the photo below was taken very close to the location of C.K.'s photo above:

Second Meeting With C.K. Shepherd's Son: After the crankshaft broke in Kansas, I was heartbroken with the prospect I would not ride into the Grand Canyon like C.K. did 100 years ago. Some of the most poetic writing in C.K.'s book describes his transit of the then-new states of New Mexico and Arizona and I was determined to tour with the Red One at least as far as the Grand Canyon. Much of my drive to make it to the Grand Canyon was due to the appointment I had long ago made to meet again with C.K. Shepherd's son, Charles Drury Shaw, at the El Tovar Hotel at the Grand Canyon.
 
Charles and his wife Carolyn arrived in Phoenix non-stop from London on Friday, June 26th. The next day, he drove up to the Grand Canyon, arriving about the same time we did on the 27th. I immediately transported the Red One to a spot in front of the El Tovar had a bit of a photo shoot:

Dinner: A few weeks ago, Charles wrote that he had secured 7:00pm dinner reservations for six in the El Tovar Dining Room. So we washed off the dust of the road and headed down for dinner. We were given a wonderful window seat to the sunset and canyon rim only 200 feet away. For extra treat, a mother elk and her fawn decided the lawn in front of us was the perfect spot for an evening meal. Truly spectacular!

From left to right in the above photo: Lloyd Hill, Mark Hunnibell, Laura Hunnibell, Carolyn Shaw, Charles Shaw, and Andy Faust. Lloyd and Andy had signed on as safety riders and off-road surveyors out west and even though they drove a truck in (like me), they did not want to miss this once-in-a-lifetime chance for personal reflections on the challenges of the trip C.K. took and the interruption of my centennial tribute.

By the end of the night, although the conversation was surreal, we all could see that this was not a very satisfying way to end the tribute, and that I simply must get the Red One running again and get it back on the road for a proper finish.
 
In short... this is not over... stay tuned!