more catching up 22/10/2006 - ,

So here we are just outside the wonderful Joshua Tree NP (where we are camping). Back in California again....





Still trying to catch up on the blog here, courtesy of San Bernadino County library, so let's look back to the 22nd October...

22/10/2006 - Las Vegas (morning) then on towards GC

We both woke up early today, still over-excited from our trip to The Strip. Rita went for a run to calm herself down, I went down the road to Sam's Town (Casino complex) and dobbed a few more dollars in the hands of the dealers.
Drove to a place called Selignan in Arizona, via the Hoover Dam. We were stopped prior to going over the Hoover Dam : 'Hom3eland security, Sir - we need to look in your vehicle'. When it became apparent that we had no fully armed tactical nuclear warheads either under the van,under the bed or in the sink,we were allowed to pass.
Selignan's on the old Route 66 - no kicks to be had here though.

23/10/2006

Travelling to the Grand Canyon today, via somewhere called Williams (where we managed to catch up a few days blogging, but have now only just got to the day where we did that in our blog). Our first vierw of the Grand Canyon wa sall we had led to believe it would be. Awesome (in the literal, rather than commonly used sense - e.g. that bar of choclate is awesome or Cliff Richard is awesome [o.k., I know that wouldn't be used, but you get the picture]).

24/10/2006

We'd decided to go on a Ranger led walk into the Canyon today. this meant getting up at 6:30 a.m., which really proved to be the hardest part. When we got to the top of the Canyon, we were met by an 80 year old guy, named John. He was to be our leader.
As it turned out he was brilliant, very informative, fit as a fiddle and in tune with the surroundings.There were about 9 in our group, the majority around our age and the pace was very leisurely. It wa sconsiderably harder climbing up again. I have to state at this point we only descending about 1100ft into the Canyon. Going to the bottom would involve something like 5,000 of descent.