Solo trip to Grand Canyon was what I needed for a fresh 2024 outlook

Late last year, after a conversation with my oldest daughter about the year she spent living in Arizona, it dawned on me that I’d never seen the Grand Canyon.

So I decided to take a trip to visit.

Other than seeing the Grand Canyon, I had no specific plans and no particular purpose for the trip. It just felt like an opportunity to get away for a few days, catch my breath and start the new year with a fresh perspective.

It was my first time traveling by myself. I’d never considered it before, thinking it would be too isolating, but it turned out to be just what I needed.

I booked a Jan. 3 plane ticket to Phoenix with a return flight three days later. After landing in Phoenix and picking up my rental car, I drove up a winding road along the side of a mountain to Dobbins Lookout, where I caught a glorious view of the city. After the terrifying drive back down the mountain — at several points there were no guardrails along the edge — I went to a Phoenix Suns basketball game and stayed the first night in a hotel near the airport.

I grabbed breakfast the next morning at a popular restaurant recommended by both my oldest daughter and a co-worker who hails from the area. After eating the best shrimp and grits I’d ever had, I drove to the Grand Canyon and took it in for as long as I could stand the 29-degree weather.

I’d packed for the 60-degree weather in Phoenix, not realizing the drive north would take me to areas where the elevation exceeded 7,000 feet. Despite the mild frostbite on my fingers, I snapped dozens of pictures of the natural wonder before driving south to a hotel in Flagstaff where I stayed the second night.

I headed west to Las Vegas the next morning. My only impressions of Vegas came from TV shows and films, like “The Hangover.” I absolutely love that movie. Alas, unlike the Wolfpack, my one night in Vegas didn’t involve ingesting “roofies,” losing any teeth, stealing Mike Tyson’s tiger or getting knocked unconscious by the former heavyweight champ. I also didn’t get married to a stranger, and I didn’t count cards and win a fortune at the blackjack table.

As a novice tourist, I took in a show and cruised the strip, soaking up the vibe of the scene. It was probably for the best, since I had no one to bail me out of jail or otherwise rescue me from trouble.

The next day, I drove back to Phoenix for my flight home, stopping along the way to catch my first in-person glimpse of the Hoover Dam.

The trip came at a perfect time.

Seeing our own worth

In many ways, 2023 was a blur.

I was still reeling from losing my mother and my marriage the year before. Sometimes the hardest thing to do each day was just getting out of bed in the morning to confront a reality I didn’t want to face or accept.

As the year went on, the feelings of remorse faded some. And getting away to start 2024 felt like an opportunity to exhale and shed much of what I’d been holding on to for so long.

Over the years, I’ve felt consumed with the demands and pressures of life — honoring the commitments of career and addressing my responsibilities to family. In a way, I could no longer see the person staring back at me in the mirror.

My vision was obscured by my focus on the needs of others. Even family vacations weren’t truly vacations — except for the brief moments soaking alone in a hotel hot tub or floating aimlessly in the lazy river at the waterpark.

But traveling alone for those four days and three nights opened my eyes. For sure, I witnessed the astonishing view from Dobbins Lookout, the wondrous beauty of the Grand Canyon and the might of the Hoover Dam. And I could feel the electricity and excitement of the Vegas strip and the peace and serenity of the desert countryside during my hours on the road between destinations.

Along the way, I was also able to truly see myself.

None of us are perfect. But with time and space to reflect on our lives and to take account of what we’ve endured and who we’ve become, we can start to see ourselves — to behold our own worth, value and majesty.

Alden Loury is data projects editor for WBEZ and writes a monthly column for the Sun-Times.

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