Grand Canyon/Tuscon, Arizona

October 2, 2005. "I'm 8,000 feet up, yet I never felt so grounded. Wind sounds like a train blowing through the canyon - the sturdy trees barely budge but drop dead pine needles onto the roof of my tent. Rows of perfectly aligned trees fill the landscape - most are green from the warm months, but some have already turned yellow. Warm days in Oct., but at night 30's.

{Fellow campers I met at Grand Canyon]: "Steve/Mollie Minnesota - Steve tall handsome with beard stubble - Mollie reminds me of Nicole's laugh. Ruth - slumming it - would grab a free campsite wherever she could - just went to Bryce Canyon from Vancouver, British Columbia. [Travels through Arizona]: "Indian places along Highway 89 - Ol' Chief. Running alongside freight train on Route 66 between Seligman and Peach. [At camp]: Hot dogs/beans - 3 hot dogs!

September 24, 2005. Tuscon, Arizona. Today, I saw things that put awe in the mind of this 40-year-old. Things of beauty so magnificent it was if I were in some other universe, looking at creations of another world. To the horizon stretch dusty, brown, cracked desert lands that eventually meet with mountains - purple almost as they project into the hazy skies over Highway 10. The peaks look as if they were painted in watercolor - not quite real. I have never seen so many cacti - there is one outside my small room here in the Sonoran Desert - the call these shacks "casitas" - Spanish for small house. The locals here warn me about snakes in September - poisonous ones. I haven't seen one yet, but a huge bullfrog jumped in my path today and I watched from my casita as birds flew in and out of the nesting holes they burrowed into a cactus. Everything is very dark in the desert - so dark, the Milky Way illuminates the sky. Just off Highway 10, onto a narrow road cutting through scorching hot plains there is an Indian reservation that once served as a Japanese internment camp during World War II. Seems the U.S. Government never got permission from the local tribe to use the land for that purpose. Figures. The folks were real nice there - a Native American woman served me fry bread and tender meat as two haggard looking guys with cowboy hats sat nearby. Tomorrow - I am riding a horse named Paulie. Can it get any better than this? Oh it will - Mark

September 25, 2005. As the sun slowly crept up from behind the mountains and backlit the towering cacti outside my casita window, I stepped outside into the warm Arizona air and headed for the stables. There waiting for me was my horse Paulie - a large grey equine with an off white mane. The odor of manure and horse filled my nostrils and I had to bat away hordes of pesky flies, but I was loving this moment. The first time I tried to mount my horse, I nearly pulled the saddle clear off. City boy! Second time was a charm and there I was - sitting high atop Paulie with the mountains and desert as my view.