I can distinctly remember my first visit to Arizona. It was the one summer my parents planned a two-week journey from Los Angeles to Iowa and back in our lemon-yellow station wagon. The 1984 Summer Olympics would mean worse traffic gridlock than usual, so the decision was made to get out of town. This of course meant I would end up watching Mary Lou Retton nail her vault in a hotel in North Platte, Nebraska on a small fuzzy screen while asking, “Why didn’t we stay home and go to the Olympics?!” On our way back from visiting grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in southeast Iowa, we headed south to make our way home via the southwestern states and a trip to the Grand Canyon was in order. After a few sweltering August days traveling though Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico, we made it to northern Arizona and a day at the Grand Canyon. There were the glimpses from the car as we made our way through the park, but there’s nothing like the full effect you experience when you walk up the steps to the top of the Bright Angel Trail to see the in-person version of this natural wonder. My first thought? “It doesn’t look real. I feel like I am looking at a gigantic painting.” And you know what … I still feel that way every time I go. It’s such a beautiful, impossible, vast picture that I truly get the sensation that my eyes are playing a trick on me. I’ve hiked about a half mile down the trail when visiting on other trips but haven’t ventured to the bottom of the canyon, yet. Maybe someday. My second visit to Arizona is tied to a different bit of history. After deciding to attend Arizona State University in 1990, I put off visiting the campus until after high school graduation and a senior trip to Mexico. I had watched the Fiesta Bowl at Sun Devil Stadium on TV for many years and had several Andrea Evans | Publisher A few notable firsts MY OWN BYGONE DAYS IN THE GRAND CANYON STATE OPEN DOORS { publisher’s page } 48 FRONTDOORS MEDIA | FEBRUARY 2019

@AndreaTEvans Andrea Evans PUBLISHER family friends tell me what great places Tempe and Scottsdale were to visit. But my mom was not impressed with this decision and feared I would change my mind for some reason and end up back home. So there we were, on a late June mother-daughter road trip to visit the place that would become my new home. After a night at one of the Pointe resorts, we were up early to join our tour guide and fellow freshmen-to-be and take that first stroll along Palm Walk through ASU’s sprawling main campus. What we weren’t anticipating was the heat. It was dry but it was quite a step up from the 105-degree max we had lived through in Southern California. The tour guides were prepared and altered their stops to include the air-conditioned lobby entrances of each building on campus. I was so excited to be there, the heat really didn’t faze me, but my poor mother was wilting and thinking to herself that I would want to bail on attending ASU. We made it through the day and couldn’t wait to jump into the hotel pool. When we got back to our room, the local news alerted us that the heat on this particular day was unique. It was June 26, 1990 — the day that the all-time record- high temperature of 122 degrees hit. No wonder! I obviously didn’t cancel my plans to attend ASU and the rest, as they say, is history. Andrea FEBRUARY 2019 | FRONTDOORS MEDIA 49