Living in Mesa Arizona, I've had the pleasure of not seeing snow the majority of my life but I felt the need to share the experience I had last Saturday with all of you. My good friend Mike, who lived in Michigan all his life moved out here two years ago to live with us. Him and my sister are an item and have been since 1998, we all met eachother initially on Kali and then in 1999 the family went to Michigan to visit relatives (My Dad was born in MI) and we got to meet him in person while we were there. Excluding my sister, Mike and I were really good friends because of this grand old game of Descent and we would find this to be just one of our common interests.
Mike or better known as Esp was one of the first gen players on Kali. He won #1 on the IDL (Invitational Descent Ladder) when the ladder was young and only had just one tier of competition. However when I met him his reputation had been scewed because one of his friends did some stuff on the IDL that ended in both of them being kicked and banned from the ladder and he had stopped playing with this said friend and Descent for a while.
Anyways, in 2000 he came back under an alias to re-establish his reputation and prove to others that he was wrongfully accused of the things that got him banned and eventually was re-instated to play on IDL. In 2001, shortly after 9/11 he moved down here to Arizona to stay with us.
Things down here really haven't worked out for him, and this coming Thursday he will be moving back to MI, so one of the things he really wanted to do before he left to go back is see the Grand Canyon before he left. So, last Saturday, the family all geared up to go up north, since the rest of us had only glimpsed at it but had never visited the park itself we weren't really sure what to expect.
My hope was that it was cold enough that there would be a good amount of snow on the ground. This was very quickly answered shortly after we got through Flagstaff as a light snow started falling and the closer we got to the park the more and more the ground gave way to a white wasteland. It had been snowing all morning by the time we reached the park.
When we finally got to the park, we pulled over and Mike, my sister and I had a huge snowball fight. Now, this might seem common place to most of you and perhaps taken for granted, but this was important for me and my sister because we hadn't seen snow in 17 years. I was 6 years old the last time I saw snow, and my sister, Heather, was 2, so she had no memory of what it looked like in person.
The closest we had seen snow is from family pictures in Montana where Heather and I were born, or on TV, so this was a big deal to us. Anyways, we went to the various lookout points at the Grand Canyon's North Rim (South is closed in the winter). When we got there the Canyon was full of fog and not very visible, but as the day drew on it slowly started to clear, not a lot, but just enough where you had an idea of the vast depth and expanse of this worldy wonder.
We had planned to have a picnic, but that was short lived because most of the day the winds were blowing much too hard and the snow absolutely refused to stop falling. Most people, including myself at the time, imagine the Grand Canyon a desert wasteland like it would be during the summer. In a way we all felt bad that Mike didn't get a chance to see it that way, but I think he enjoyed it a great deal and we all have a lasting memory of having a snowball fight there and even seeing this behemoth of nature blanketed with winter.
I'm sad that he has to leave since Heather has never been much of a gamer with me and he has been the only one to play Descent and various other games here at home since he has been here. However, I can't imagine any other way to remember him being here then this trip thats been over for almost a week already.
How many people can say they've had a snowball fight at the Grand Canyon?
Anywho, I just thought I'd share this story of snow from the perspective of someone who for the most part, probably wont see it very much in his life and perhaps some of you could share your feelings on winter and some of the moments that define it for you.Thanks for listening...
When I came out the other side, I had snow *everywhere*. Down my shirt, down my pants, etc. The snow was wet so the tunnel stayed there until a good gust of wind caused it to collapse. Well, I took advantage of that and made my own snowy foxhole.