Feb to March Update

Thanks to my camera-phone for this washed-out picture of the Grand 'Ol Canyon.  It's much more colorful than this.

Hello One and All,  It's time for a random slice of life posting from my favorite blogger: Yours Truly.  I actually did a couple things this last month.  I went to Arizona, that was cool.  Saw the Grand Canyon, which was awesome.  Grand Canyon is big, and it begs to be explored.  But if you're not careful, it will kill you.  

They say that every year people die at the Grand Canyon.  They go too far, they don't bring enough water, they get lost, and they die of thirst.  I understand why this is.  There is a sense of beckoning which I could not shake.  Even having been warned, I was tempted at every turn to travel deeper, knowing that the road out would be uphill and in the sun, twice as challenging as the road in.

The Gravity of the Grand Canyon is twofold strong:  there is the attraction of the canyon's great beauty, deep and complex.  There is the enormity of the canyon, a mile deep, stretching far and wide as if to swallow the sky.  The Grand Canyon is like an inverted mountain.  You can see everything, but there is so much to see, and such immense detail, that you've just got to take a closer look.  And because it is inverted, every step is heading downward, with gravity;  it's so easy to take another step, and another.  

I was alone, and ill-prepared, my trip to the canyon part of a last-minute trip to Arizona.  For these reasons, I did not go more than a thousand feet down.  That's 1/5 the depth of the canyon, for those keeping score.  But I very much want to return, and when I do, I will go down to the Colorado River, which flows at the center of the Canyon.  But I know it as a scraping from a skyblue colored pencil against the Canyon's many-layered backdrop.

The most adorable book on desert living you're likely to find

Tucson:
Hell yeah. Grand Canyon.  After a six-hour bus ride, I ended up in Tucson, visiting a writer friend of mine.  Tucson is a cool town.  I liked it's vibe.  She described it as 'artful and populist.'  Tucson has a pub theater similar to Austin's Alamo Drafthouse.  The Tucson theater is called 'The Loft Cinema' and is totally cool.  Lots of special events, current movies, classic movies, campy movies.

Random Game Rant:  
Flora and Fauna of Arizona are very different because it is a desert.  I wonder about video games and different climate regions.  Are there any games that go into detail?  Because RPGs frequently have an entire globes worth of regions, I imagine theres an RPG or two that goes to a deeper level with it.  MMORPGS most likely.

The ways in which I know RPGs do things that respect regional flora and fauna:  Different monsters, material harvesting, sometimes the landscape will change your ability to move - poison swamps, hills in Dragon Warrior slowing movement.   In general, my experience has been that the settings and climates of RPGs are mostly window dressing.  I just know it can go deeper.

The Train:
Oh, did I mention I too the train back?  30 hours on the train, from Tucson to Sacramento.  It was pretty cool.  I took the Texas Eagle from Tucson at 8:30pm, and was able to sleep pretty well, given that I had two seats to myself, and was able to spread myself out effectively.  Then, the next day I took the Coast Starlight from LA to Sacramento.  The Coast Starlight is very famous for its views of the ocean and coastal hills.  It runs from LA to Seattle, and I've taken it most of that distance, though always heading north.  I'd like to ride the length of it south, and who knows, maybe I'll get my chance, because...

Amtrak has an awesome plan to give free rides to writers!  Granted, I'm not sure I qualify, but I do have a blog and an English Degree!  Whatever the case may be, I think this is totally awesome, and a dream come true for writers/train lovers.  


Okay, that's all the news that's fit to print.  Talk at you later!

-D'vid

Saguaro Cactus.  These cartoon cacti only grow in the Sonoran desert.