Well, they're at the Grand Canyon now. We'll see how well that goes. I also need to establish a few things as well at some point, but that can wait. What's going to happen now that they're at the Grand Canyon? Let's find out.
"But you can't control me!"
Chapter Four – Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!
They could certainly see where the Grand Canyon got its name. It was amazing and ginormous and deep. The group took a moment to let out an obligatory "ooh!" before looking around at their surroundings. They could see in the distance a river near the bottom of the gorge, carving through the rock and going on for miles.
As they got a little closer to the edge (there was probably a fence or something, but again, the author didn't know because she's never been there and there wasn't a single helpful picture when she googled the Grand Canyon), Butters immediately pulled a camera from his pocket and started snapping a million pictures. Craig, on the other hand, got as close as he could to the edge of the cliff and casually spit over the edge. Then he turned back to Tweek.
"Ok, I'm ready to leave now," he told his boyfriend.
"We just got here," Tweek pointed out, raising an eyebrow.
"Yup. And I'm ready to leave," Craig replied.
As Tweek continued to stare at him in confusion, Randy walked over with some sort of map pamphlet that he had seemed to have gotten from a nearby stand.
"Looks like we could get some gorgeous views if we hike around," he told the group. "There's also buses and mules that can take us all the way down to the river and such. And there's this walk way down that way where you can walk over the gorge and look over it."
"Ng! You mean like, walking over empty space that could collapse at any moment and the sheer mile long fall we would take?" Tweek asked, shaking at the thought. "No thank you. I'd rather do anything but that."
"Don't worry, Boo," Craig said comfortingly, putting an arm around him. "We'll just have a nice, lovely walk over that way."
"Well, I want to do that," Kenny said, excitedly. "That sounds awesome!"
"Yeah, me too!" Wendy agreed.
"Ok, so I guess we're going onto the sky walk thing, and then for a hike," Gerald said.
"If it's all the same to you, dad, I think I'm going to stay around here," Kyle spoke up. "I promised Ike I would get him something and the gift shop is right over there."
Gerald hesitated for a moment before replying. "I guess it's ok," he said. "As long as you stay around here. You all have cell phones on you, right?"
"Dad, we're teenagers," Kyle pointed out, rolling his eyes. "Of course, we all have cell phones on us." All of them pulled their phones out of their pockets just to prove it.
"All right then, let's just all try not to go too far then," Randy said. Tweek and Craig turned and walked away in one direction, while Wendy, Stan, Kenny and Butters started towards the walkway with Gerald and Randy. Cartman didn't move and Stan turned towards him in confusion when he saw that he wasn't following.
"Cartman, are you coming?" he asked him. His friend looked at him like he was crazy.
"Coming with you?" he repeated. "On a hike? No way, I'm going to the gift shop too." Then he turned and quickly followed after Kyle. Stan stared after him, then shrugged and quickly caught up to the others. He really didn't know why he would expect Cartman to want to walk places, but it was worth a shot.
Randy and Gerald led the group down one path, ignoring the tour guides who were talking about really boring shit, with boring science facts about the canyon. It took a while to get around this very boring tour guide, since he had an annoyingly large group of people, but they managed to get away from them eventually.
"Oh, thank God," Stan sighed to Kenny once they could no longer hear the guide drone on. "I couldn't stand listening to that guy another moment."
"I know, right?" Kenny replied with a shudder. "I was actually starting to learn! It was horrible!"
They didn't say anything more as they reached the walkway that went out over the canyon and Wendy and Butters excitedly ran over to it. Kenny and Stan ran after them, and Gerald and Randy followed more slowly. The view was utterly breath-taking. The canyon stretched for miles below them and it almost felt like they were walking on air.
"Wow, this is amazing!" Butters said excitedly. "Look how high up we are!"
"It's so beautiful!" Wendy sighed.
Stan went to stand next to her, trying not to think about what would happen if the structure just collapsed. He didn't need to turn into Tweek at the moment. He steadied himself before leaning over the railing to look down. Boy, was that a mistake. Immediately feeling nauseous, Stan leaned back and gave Wendy a sheepish grin.
"I think this is how the fear of heights is born," he mumbled, mostly to himself. Wendy laughed and rolled her eyes.
"You baby," she teased, kissing him on the cheek.
Butters was having absolutely no problem with the height, as he leaned out as far as he could, pointing his camera towards the ground (that was about a mile below him, I might add), and happily taking pictures.
"Pretty cool view, huh, Stan?" Randy asked his son, coming over to stand next to him. Stan had closed his eyes and didn't open them to look at his dad.
"Sure, dad," he muttered. "If you say so."
"Why don't we move on?" Gerald suggested. "We can get even more fantastic views if we keep walking that way."
"Good idea," Wendy replied, taking Stan's arm and leading him back onto solid ground. They regrouped and quickly started down the path again, making sure to keep moving before the boring tour group could catch up to them.
The Grand Canyon gift shop was a pleasant, medium-sized building with enough room between the aisles to not feel too cramped or crowded. The shop was filled with mostly little kids who only came here for toys and honestly couldn't give a crap about one of America's greatest wonders, and their parents, who could give a crap about America's great wonder.
As they entered the shop, Kyle gave a long sigh before picking a random direction and starting towards one of the aisles, hands in his pockets. Cartman quickly caught up to him and pressed lightly against his side.
"You know, I didn't think you could come up with gift ideas based on a giant hole in the ground, but I guess someone managed it," Cartman commented nonchalantly. Kyle gave him a look.
"I think the Grand Canyon is a little more complicated than just being 'a giant hole in the ground,'" he pointed out to him.
"I just don't know what the big deal about this place is," Cartman replied.
"Well, of course anything sounds unimpressive when you describe it as a hole in the ground," Kyle said, rolling his eyes.
They were silent for a moment as they continued down another row, examining the various knick-knacks that were on sale. Most of the back shelves were lined with books on the history of the Grand Canyon, while the row they were in had novelty pencils and erasers and such. Cartman started grumbling as they slowly walked down the aisle, picking up some of the pencils and casting a bored eye on them.
"You couldn't have picked a more boring row to start in, could you?" he muttered under his breath. Kyle rolled his eyes at him.
"You don't have to follow me, you know," he pointed out to him.
"So, what are you going to get your brother anyway?" Cartman asked him, ignoring his statement. Kyle shrugged in response.
"I don't know," he replied. "Ike's not really all that picky yet, so I could get him anything and he'd probably like it." His eyes widened for a moment. "I dread the day when he'll be able to pick out the difference between a cheap present and an expensive one."
"Well, I can tell you right now that no nine-year old would be excited to get a pencil as a souvenir," Cartman told him. "Unless he was a colossal nerd."
Kyle bit back a sarcastic retort and led the way down a different aisle, far away from the pencils and erasers. They found a way more exciting row of stuff, filled with stupid toys and useless things shaped as the Grand Canyon. There were science kits and a lot of rocks, and I don't know, canyon shaped paperweights, I guess.
Cartman found most of the stuff rather boring (how did you make souvenirs based on the Grand Canyon exciting anyway?), and he lazily trailed behind Kyle, who had started to keep a much faster pace than him. He wasn't paying much attention and almost ran into Kyle when his friend suddenly stopped in front of him.
He glanced at him in annoyance and saw that the red head was staring in confusion at someone across the store. He turned to look as well, but the person had already left and Kyle was shaking his head and looking down at the merchandise in front of them. Cartman lightly pressed himself against his side as he looked down at the stuff as well.
They had stopped in front of a sort of box that had all sorts of gems and rocks with drawstring bags that you could fill with said gems and rocks. Next to that was a stand holding large limestone rocks with engravings etched in them that said "Someone I know went to the Grand Canyon and all I got was this lousy rock." Kyle grinned somewhat evilly and snatched one of them up, turning it over in his hand to examine it.
"Yeah, this will do," he announced after a moment. Cartman gave him a look.
"Seriously?" he asked. "That's what you're getting Ike?"
"If he wanted something better, he should have just come with us in the first place," Kyle replied with a shrug.
Cartman rolled his eyes and turned to start towards the register, and nearly had a heart attack when he saw Tweek and Craig standing right behind him. He put a hand to his chest and tried to take deep breaths.
"What are you guys doing here?" he hissed at them. "I thought you were going on a walk or something."
"We were," Craig replied, giving him a strange look. "But then we got bored, so we thought we would come in here and make out in front of everyone in the store."
Tweek rolled his eyes with a sigh. "No," he growled at his boyfriend. "We came in here because you said you had to pee, remember?" Craig blinked at him.
"I like my story better," he mumbled. Tweek opened his mouth to say something, but then he spotted something on the shelves behind Kyle and Cartman and his eyes slowly lit up.
"Craig!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Souvenir mugs!" He quickly grabbed his boyfriend's arm and happily rushed past their friends to where a bunch of different mugs were set up. Most of the mugs had the Grand Canyon as pictures on the side, but one seemed to have a mini Canyon carved into the bottom. Tweek eagerly grabbed one and turned to Craig, hopping up and down with excitement. "Craig, can I buy one?" he pleaded. "Can I? Can I? Can I?"
One of Craig's rare smiles crept up onto his face and his eyes softened. "If you want, babe," he replied. "It's your money."
"Oh yay!" Tweek said, drowning him out. He rushed towards the front of the shop, nearly shoving people over to get to the register. Craig stared fondly after him before turning and rolling his eyes with a smirk.
"He really likes souvenir mugs," he explained to Kyle and Cartman.
"We can tell," Kyle replied, raising an eyebrow.
They hung around the gift shop for a while longer, browsing the various aisles while listening to Cartman complain about pretty much everything in the shop. It was a couple hours later before the four of them left the shop with their purchases. Kyle received a text from Stan that they were going over to a nearby restaurant for dinner, so they started heading over there.
The rest of the group was already at a huge table when the four of them finally got there. As soon as they sat down, Cartman turned to glare at Stan, who stared back at him in confusion.
"What?" he wondered.
"Dude, your text made it seem like this restaurant was like, right outside the gift shop," Cartman growled at him. "You didn't tell us that we had to actually walk!"
"We didn't walk here," Kyle pointed out as Stan rolled his eyes. "We took the bus here, remember?" Cartman cast a sideways glare at him but didn't respond.
"So, where are we going after this?" Wendy asked once the waiter came to take their order.
"Well, the Hoover Dam is only about three or four hours from here," Randy pointed out, checking his phone. "And then Las Vegas is a short drive from there. That'll knock two things off our list."
"Oh boy, a giant wall," Cartman muttered. "How exciting." Kyle glared at him.
"Seriously, Cartman," he growled. "Nothing on this trip is going to be exciting when you keep describing everything like that."
"When did you become the cynical asshole one of us?" Stan wondered.
"The Hoover Dam is the only thing President Herbert Hoover managed to contribute to America once the Great Depression hit," Wendy added. "It's a little more important than just being a giant wall." Butters blinked at her.
"I thought it was named after the vacuum cleaner," he confessed. "You know, the Hoover vacuum?" Kenny let out a frustrated sigh.
"Butters, you're so stupid," he muttered under his breath.
Well, I'm going to end the chapter right here because I have nothing else for them to do at the Grand Canyon. They'll be on the road again in the next chapter, and probably reach the Hoover Dam then too, since again, it's a four-hour drive.
Also, has any of you been to the Hoover Dam? What's it like? What can you do there? Did I mention the only places I've been to in the west are New Mexico and Arizona, and that was just for a mission trip? I may have cried the whole way there because of my paralyzing fear of planes, but I think I've said too much. I'm doing my best to research the places I've never been to, but I probably will get things wrong, so please don't send me reviews constantly saying like "Uh, you can't actually do that there!" and such.
So, anyway, leave a review and remember: Don't grow up. It's a trap!