All prepped for the big tour, we arrive at reception before 10am, then wait til quarter past. Martin arrives with Alehandro. For some reason although Alehandro does the whole tour for us in english, he does not drive. Alehandro is approx 40, friendly but appears preoccupied with conducting his narrative and does not readily take on our comments or questions.However through the day he covers a much wider subject than the tour content, telling us about the famous singer Jimenez (Himenez) and taking us to his memorial, talking about Guanajuato life and how not to live in the hills outside town because of all the scorpions. He also goes over all the stuff about Guanajuato that we'd not really understood from the previous day. The tour starts in Dolores Hidalgo after the stop at the cemetary ... read more

Despite the occasional truck noise from the main road outside, we sleep in. The bus with the words "La Valanciana" takes us to El Centro for $31 (all $ in MEX, divide by 10 to get approx AU$). Then we walk along the crowded footpath with strong smells to reach the Hidalgo Mergado. We enter at the fruits end, look across to see chickens being chopped at the right, and opt to have a drink at a drinks stand. We work out 'fresa' is strawberry and seems we ordered a strawberry milk drink with real strawberries. Actually tastes quite nice. The boys have chocolate milks while I have a 'grande' (really really big) cup of a geenish coloured liquid with ice and seeds that sits in a large clear barrel. The girl scoops out the liquid ... read more

A little juggling of schedules today: we need to get our laundry done, could look around Williams, could do a wildlife park drive, and could return the Grand canyon so Joseph can get his badge. After a nice complimentary breakfast complete with waffle makers (Donkey's voice from 'Shrek' pops in "I'm makin' waffles!"), Ky goes to the laundromat while I post postcards in town with the boys. We have a look in a souvenir shop where Joseph and I find more geodes $6 each, and a small piece of petrified wood for $3 (Ky later says that's enough rocks!). Williams looks pretty awesome with all the murals and arty-crafty places so Ky stays back to look around town while I take the boys back to the Grand Canyon. We are aiming for an 11am Ranger talk ... read more

An early start today, on the road at 7:37am and planning to take the road west out of the park and then a nice straight road heading south. At least the map shows it as straight with a slight curve. In reality it was a windy tortuous road with multiple hairpin bends. Liam heaved about 3/4 of the way down this nasty road that ended up slowing us down an hour. However the route after that was fine, and after Visalia we were on the main roads with 70mph speed limits. Lunch in Mojave at a hamburger joint, then on to Las Vegas arriving 4pm. It is hot! A shock from the chilly nights and warm afternoons. We park out back and pulled two of our suitcases quickly into the cool air conditioned atrium of the ... read more

We drag ourselves out of cold beds to another chilly morning. Breakfast in the restaurant today: Liam has french toast with bacon, Joseph fried eggs on toast, Ky just bacon while I have 2 fried eggs on a ham steak with 2 pancakes on the side. The waitress makes a couple of mistakes with the order and gives us a 20% discount. Nice! Suitably nourished, we drove about 45 minutes along the General Grants Highway to Lodgepole Village. There we looked around at the displays and watched a movie about bears while Ky had the washing going at the laundromat. A medium sized brown coloured black bear (only 35% of black bears are actually coloured black in colour) was looking for food about 10m above the road. Liam and I watched him/her (I wasn't about to ... read more