So much to say...

---

After dropping Gillian off in Denver we pushed on with the last leg of our tour that would include our faithful and strudy Chuck. There are some interesting places en route from Colorado to the Grand Canyon. A brief summary of our impressions of those that we saw....

Pueblo - not as bad as everyone said it would be, however, we arrived in the dark and left early the next morning. We think of it as the Colorado version of Beatty (ie not much apart from a Motel 6 room).

Trinidad - yes, Trinidad. Where we had breakfast after leaving Pueblo - right on the Colorado/New Mexico border. An old mining town with its heart and soul kicked out of it. Lovely historic buildings in desperate need of a face lift.

Las Vegas, New Mexico - don´t bother! Over-hyped by Lonely Planet, sounded promising, full of buildings on the national historic register. Turned out to be a mess of a town that we couldn´t get out off quick enough...

Santa Fe - Fantastic, beautiful, warm, sunny, picturesque, lovely galleries, restaurants, buildings. Highly recommend the El Rey Inn, a wonderful nights stay.

Flagstaff - Quite funky, dodgy hostel, fantastic Thai restaurant. Woke up to snow in Arizona. (Can we never get away from the stuff???)

Gill had told me about how amazing your first impressions of the Grand Canyon are, so I suppose I was looking forward to understanding what all the fuss was about. Well, it was quite a first impression - I couldn´t see anything, even at the edge of the rim - snow and fog obliterated everything. So we went and saw the IMAX film instead!!! At least that gave me an idea of its scale.

Seligman - a very very strange little place. Trying to make the most of its place along Route 66 - the only life we saw there was a shop (we were the only living customers) populated on the outside by 20 or so shop manequins in various costumes from the 50s and 60s. If you came across it in the dark, it would scare the living daylights out of you....

Peach Springs - The starting point for our water adventure, is on an Indian reservation, with the road that leads to the Colorado River. Not much there apart from our accommodation, the Hualapi Lodge.

We were up early to be collected to begin the trip and thankfully, the weather was a big improvement on the previous days snow and fog, and we were assured that the canyon floor is always 10/15 degrees warmer anyway. The truck had definitely seen better days, but the logic behind its use was sound, they used to buy $30K SUVs to carry the rafters down, but the´road´(actually a natural ´wash´where the rains run from the canyon to the river) is so poor they were knacked within 12 months. So now they buy old vans for next to nothing and let them fall to bits. (some would say that´s my policy toward car purchase).

After about an hour of being bounced around and listening to a woman from Ohio tell us how she had rafted the entire river before (actually she had done the trip in a guided power boat - not rafting as we had been lead to believe), we arrived at the start point of our water based adventure.

A VERY brief safety chat later, we were on the water, tastefully dressed in orange life jackets. It didn´t take long to understand that when we were told that the river would be cold - it was very cold.... Our guide, Ray, was in charge of the pontoon (we could´t get a short, affordable rowing trip) and took great pleasure in directing the boat towards as much white water as he could find. Very quickly we were wet to the skin, but having a whale of a time. What a laugh. After lunch the ride was much more gentle as we floated down the river amazed at the natural world around us. At the end of the water odessey we were dropped off and caught a helicopter (as you do) back out of the canyon.

---