Trip West, Part II: Late Shift

It was 1984. Having finished her shift at Ruby’s Inn and Restaurant, Sharon was home and in bed when the phone rang around midnight. She was half asleep when she picked up the receiver, but alarm banished any grogginess when she heard the tone in her mother’s voice. 

“What’s wrong, Mom? Is Dad okay?”

 

“Yes, but I called to check on you. Ruby’s is on fire and I knew you worked the late shift.”

 

The inn had been a fixture at Bryce Canyon since the 1920’s when Reuben “Ruby” Syrett and his wife, Minnie, expanded and moved their small “Tourist Rest Lodge” to the inn’s current location. Bryce Canyon had been designated a National Park, and the number of visitors had multiplied. Over the years, Ruby’s had become a destination in its own right as the Syretts added a post office, pool, gift shop, and restaurant. 

 

As Sharon cleared our dinner plates – she was still serving at Ruby’s over 40 years later – she said, “There’s no nicer or more hard-working family than the Syretts.” She gestured over her shoulder at a young woman taking orders a few tables down. “That’s Ruby and Minnie’s great-great-grandaughter. The family still runs the place.”

 

Sandra, our server at breakfast, was equally admiring of the inn’s owners. Like Sharon, she had worked at Ruby’s for over forty years, and had more to add about the Syretts.

 

“When the inn burned down, people came from all over to help with the clean-up and rebuilding. Locals brought food and opened their homes to the guests of the inn. Everyone loved the Syretts. I heard that, for years, travelers arriving late at night would find a note and a key to their room taped to the front door. ‘Course, it’s a different world now and you couldn’t do that, but that’s how welcoming they were. Didn’t want anyone stranded in the dark.” 

Ruby’s is about a mile’s drive from Bryce Canyon and met my two-fold standard in seeking accommodations: it was historic and convenient to the park entrance. After dinner and our chat with Sharon, we decided to make the easy drive to Sunset Point to see the stars. 

 

Bryce is famous for spectacular stargazing as it is part of the “Dark Skies Initiative” which identifies places with minimal light pollution, but the empty parking lot was bright when we pulled in. On this night, it was Nature herself obscuring the constellations as a full moon lit our way to the canyon’s edge. 

 

The vast amphitheater fell away before us, spires and towers seeming a shadowy city of sandstone drip castles rising below, whipped, as were we, by the wind. It is tempting to think all is as it will be, but millions of years ago, this was under water. The planet is ever-evolving, tectonic plates shifting, sea levels and temperatures rising. What will be here in a thousand years?

 

Dave and I were utterly alone. There was no light but that of the moon to outline the bones of the Earth below. Above and around us swept the expanse of the heavens. In the presence of the artistry of the Creator, I sought to radiate my awe and gratitude. 

*          *

 

On the rim of Bryce Canyon, within whispering distance of sandstone portals, temples, and hoo doos, we overheard a conversation. 

 

“You’re going to Arches tomorrow? Got a reservation?  No? Well, get one. They require reserved entry times now. The lines had gotten too long.”

 

What?

 

In that sublime place, high above ravens gliding on air currents, my stomach clenched. We were going to Arches National Park in a few days, and we didn’t have a reservation.

 

Breathing deeply, I looked to the expanse of sky; the gnarled, ancient bristlecone pines; and the audience of watchful hoodoos in the ampitheater below to calm my Ingersoll urge that all be under control. Nowhere was the message to release that idle hope more evident than in these National Parks where millions of years of shifting plates, whipping winds, and persistent water have raised mountains, carved canyons, and dried seas. 

We’ll call our hotel in Moab later and figure it out. Let it go. 

 

But a call later in the day confirmed what we’d heard. A moderately helpful representative at the park told us that times had been reserved months in advance, however some open slots were released every evening at 6:00. Unable to get our way and nail this down immediately, we were furious at Arches National Park. We had flown and driven thousands of miles to visit, for heaven’s sake!

 

For a short time, Arches joined Dale City and Breeze Airways on our shit list.