A momentous few days!

RIP Queen Elizabeth. Whist I may be an ardent republican that doesn't mean I can't acknowledge that you were a much loved mother, grandmother and great grandmother. My sincere condolences to your family. But I remain a republican and whist I can appreciate those who mourn your death as a human, I can still disagree with the existence of the institution. So Charles III, I hope that one of the first things you do as new king is to abolish the monarchy. In which case you would earn my respect. I guess it won’t happen, even if you do read this blog.

Miles Tuesday: 190

Miles yesterday: 260

Miles today:195

Miles so far: 775

OK, back to the blog… I’ve a lot of catching up to do. So apologies if this is all bit random! It has been pretty full on three days. For a start we have managed about 650 miles, most of it in rather punishing heat. Although we are relieved to be in the mountains now and the temperature has dropped to a more acceptable low to mid 20s. In fact a short shower on the pass between Cortez and Durango was almost welcome - as we saw the thermometer needles on our bikes drop about 10ºC in a matter of a few miles. We did of course stop on the way at Four Corners to take the obligatory stupid shot! We "do" stupid very well.

So here we are in Durango, Colorado, last visited a mere 4 months ago, which feels a bit weird! But it is still a lovely town, and rather a nice place to spend our day off the bikes, as tomorrow we head up the rail line, pulled by steam to Cascade Canyon, pretending we are 10 years old - just like usual I suppose. But that is tomorrow.

Today we were greeted by the most spectacular sunrise in Monument Valley - by simple virtue of having left the curtains open in our rooms at Gouldings Lodge. Wow, what a view to wake up to!

And that was preceded yesterday by an equally magnificent sunset!

Monument Valley, scene of many a western since the Gouldings (the eponymous founders of the lodge we are staying in) persuaded John Ford to shoot "Stagecoach" here after the Great Depression. We finally left Monument Valley via views from more modern films - Thelma and Louise on Forest Gump Hill (I'm not kidding!).

And that will have to do for my words for today's journey. The pictures convey the beauty of it far more than my ramblings.

So now I need to go back a couple of days. The Grand Canyon. It's big. Really big. In fact "Grand", for once, is whatever the opposite of hyperbole is. Pretty much mangled that sentence but never mind. This rather large hole in the ground. 300 miles long and about a mile deep - haven't checked any of that but I think its close enough. We started our GC adventure on Tuesday morning with a short walk to the canyon's edge at the west rim.

That was rewarding enough, but we followed that with a helicopter trip into the bottom of the canyon, with 20 minutes on the ground near the Colorado River. I am running out of superlatives to describe this. Magical, beautiful, mind-blowing. In fact it's probably best I don't try. I didn't even take that many photos, just tried to enjoy the moment and reflect on how lucky I am to be able to do this. That said, here are a few...

Somewhat unbelievably Eric and I will be back here in three weeks time when we are joined by Nareesa and Helen, but Rob won't and we had received one free general entrance ticket to the area with our cabin booking - $56 worth, so it would have been criminal to waste it. So Rob tramped off on his own for an hour to the skywalk. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take any photographs so we have nothing to show for our magnanimous gesture. But he assures us it was a pretty amazing site looking vertically down into the canyon from a glass walkway - if a bit of a pain in the arse to get there!

All of that meant it was actually 1.30pm on Tuesday by the time we left Grand Canyon West and headed off for Williams on Route 66, just 170 miles away. A couple of quick stops in quirky bars and for coffee in Seligman - actually mostly drinking water, it's too hot for coffee, even for me.

Knowing it was a long day Wednesday (all of 260 miles as it turned out), we left Williams at 7am and heading up to the Grand Canyon south rim for breakfast. Have I mentioned it is big? As ever one visit is never enough, but then this is actually my fourth, and still it is a marvel, I don't want to leave. I always seem to think it is my last visit. Then I come back again. Pictures of it always look familiar but that doesn't mean it isn't a wonder of the world. The magic of the place cannot be captured by film. But I tried - or more likely I nicked the attempts by Eric or Rob!

That will have to do for now. I'm not even sure I have covered everything but it is late and if I am ever gong to catch up I will post this now. Basically we have seen nothing but amazing scenery for the last three days. I do know what a lucky person I am.