Things went much better next day; I took a different route - up 180, through the Kaibab National Forest, where the trees broke the wind off the road - but it was a fair bit warmer, too. At the Canyon we paid a hefty admission fee; Phyllis told the ranger, "You want a lot of money for something you didn't make."

(That was before she found out what a Godawful lot of shit humans, or rather the government, had built there on the South Rim. I hadn't really noticed when I was there before, too late in the day and too tired...Christ! They even had a golf course! Well, what were people supposed to do, look at the scenery?)

But of course none of it really amounted to anything, next to the tremendous age and size of the Canyon; you could dump all this obscene schlock into those ancient depths and within a few years you'd play hell finding any of it...in fact if you wanted to look at it that way, the juxtaposition made a certain ironic commentary on the silliness of human creations and human institutions and indeed the whole damned gibbering Bandarlog species....

And anyway, it was easy enough to get clear of the garbage, and then it didn't matter at all.

Phyllis said she wanted to pray. I backed off and let her do it. It wasn't my thing, but I could appreciate the impulse.

While she communed with the Prime Contractor, I walked around a little, checking out the trees that seemed to me at least as worthy of attention as the chasm beyond. This was what the wind had done to them, and I'd been bucking that wind with a motorcycle?

Phyllis came along and found me relaxing. "You silly son of a bitch," she said.

And on that note it seemed a good time to be on our way.