I almost hate to post anything here, because Scott and Kim were the originators of the blog...but I dont hate it enough to give me our room, the only room out of the three that has internet access (hahahahah). I believe if there is a blog out there its needs some blog material so here goes anyway. Our Monday we find ourselves leaving Alburquerque about 9:00 AM. Everyone is rested and in great spirits, how else can you be, if your biking your way with friends to the Western US? The riding that we are doing so far has been Interstate 40 and is pretty simple, just point the handlebars and sit back and be amazed what passes by your vision. I was very happy to see such little traffic in Alburquerque on Monday morning, after all, most everyone was reporting to work except for us! We were able to manuever around the fairly large city with very little problem, the GPS warning us all at the same time of the route (thanks to Scott for giving us all the route for our GPSs). The country side was great and you never get tire of looking because everything is so very much different our here. We went to our first destination of the day which was a State Park area that has saved many drawings or rather etchings by early Indians of the area. It was facinating to find these etchings contained on boulders piled high upon themselves, but the boulders were not boulders but volcanic rocks that are strewn all over the area from some ancient volcanic eruption. We walked up trails in these hills and could actually touch these etching from old, scatched into the rock by someone many, many years ago, wanting to leave somthing behind for others to see, and he did. The next stop that I remember, its hard to keep everything in the time line, you can imagine the brain overload from all the sights and experiences, was the Continental Divide. We read where, at this location on the earth, water poured on one side with flow north and water poured on the other side will pour south..or is it east and west..I'll have to look at some of the pictures to know for sure (apparently, Im not smarter than a 5th grader!) This is also located on our Route 66 which is parallel to I-40, we got some neat photos there. Then on to Hubbell Trading Post which is the oldest continuiously operated Navajo trading post in the world. It has been in operation since the middle 1800's and it authentic and wonderful to visit. I will also always remember passing through the painted desert. I always thought this was a beautiful place, but Im sorry..the place that we believe is the painted desert reminded me of one thing and one thing only. Now I have never seen hell before, and I certainly hope that is an experience I miss, but this place has got to be close to it. The very dirt of the earth changes to a gray looking mineral type of soil. I dont exactly know what brimstone is but this has got to be close to it. It is like being in a mineral pit of some sort with piles of this stuff here and there. The temperature had not reached 93 in our entire ride out here and we found it very hot, in fact on our way back through this hellhole of a place it reached 100 degrees on our Wing thermometers. We collectively call this area "hell" from this day forward. To be fair, the clay looking cliffs around this place were pleasing, each with horizontal stripes of several different colors which is where the name originates but the heat and ugliness of the other areas would make it the last place on earth that I would want to live..or even stay for more than an hour.

We made it to the Grand Canyon in Arizona in time to see the last 10 inches or so of sky resting between the earth and the beautiful golden sun disappear, we saw the sun slowing sink beneath the rim of the Grand Canyon, an almost once in a lifetime chance from someone from the Southeast US. The Canyon itself is awe inspiring and you cannot imagine the feeling that you get when you step up to the edge. There is nothing like it that I have ever seen in my 53 years. I thought the Smokey Mountains were beautiful, sorry Smokey, the west had got you beat by far! You will never believe the distance both deep and wide that you are staring at..mouth open in astonishment. It is almost reverence. If I die tomorrow, Im so very glad I got to see this amazing place. A goal of mine has been reached here, and I am numb from the beauty and immense scope of it. It is late and I need to leave something for Scott to write about, sorry Scott..I am overjoyed with our trip so far and have to tell everyone!!!