Hear No Anvil, See No Anvil
Posted March 20, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
When Wile E. Coyote would chase the Roadrunner off the edge of a cliff above an animated Grand Canyon , the clumsy would-be predator would hang there for a minute, and wouldn’t fall until he eventually looked down.
Now, real life visitors to the famous landmark will have the same option. Without the falling, of course.
Those that have long marveled at the Arizona canyon’s vistas now have a dizzying new opportunity — to walk on a glass-bottom observation deck and gaze more than 12,000 metres directly down to the Canyon floor.
The Skywalk opened Tuesday, and is being hailed as a marvel of engineering with its glass and steel horseshoe that extends more than 20 metres from the edge with no visible support above or below.
Admission is around $25.
An Odd Couple
Larry Woody and Otto Shima are a sitcom waiting to happen. A sort of real life, working Odd Couple.
Woody teams up with his apprentice twice a week inside his Cottage Grove , Oregon auto repair shop, though he’s never seen the young man or spoken directly to him.
Woody is blind, Shima’s deaf.
Woody says most of mechanics is done by feel, and he had 30 years of fixing, racing and restoring cars before he lost his sight in a car accident.
The 46-year-old recently bought his own shop and hired the 17-year-old to lend a hand.
An interpreter accompanies Shima on his twice-weekly visits to the shop.
Her hands translate what Woody says, and then she turns and voices Shima’s reply.
