GRAND CANYON TO NEW MEXICO!!

The Canyon was truly amazing, one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. I guess I had seen it once before from a plane on my last trip to Mexico which was quite exciting, though perhaps not as much as standing on an icy wind swept cliff 1 mile above it! Em and I drove back from our Red Feather Lodge in Tusayan (I spelled that wrong yesterday) and hiked the Rim trail. When they say "Rim" they really mean rim! Like right on the edge! Were it not for the rocks set along the edge in some key places, a person could really just fall off!

After we had our fun there, we piled back into the car and headed south-east to Flagstaff. Now despite my having been ranting about the ice and driving through the mountains, when the next option came to take the easy straight and flat road or a scenic by-way through the mountains...guess what I chose!?? Yup the mountains! Em as my co-pilot pointed out the scenic byway stating that it had those little dots all along the road on the map. I replied, "Oh, I thought those little dots indicated that the road would be potentially life-threatening and terrifying!" As it turned out, THIS TIME, unlike some OTHER roads (THANKS TODD) it was fine ;-). Just kidding Todd! The road past Quake lake was amazing, terrifying, icy and snow cover with no other vehicles but us on it...but amazing! ;-)
Oh, yeah! I didn't write about Quake lake! It is in the south west corner of Montana...possibly into Idaho (can't remember exactly now). Anyway, it is this lake that was created by an earthquake and is basically a standing forest in a frozen over lake. Now greenery left on the trees, just a bunch of eery looking gray trees all along this massive lake in the mountains! After surviving the snow covered, icy mountain roads, we made it to West Yellowstone only to discover that yes indeed, the maps were correct and you can not get into Yellowstone park, nor to see Old Faithful unless you take a snowmobile tour :-(. We decided to keep driving....or rather skating along the icy roads!!! I was very happy to make it to the flat potatoe growning land of Idaho!!! After a couple hours rest in driving through the flat lands, it was back into the mountains as we went up and over the pass into Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Please excuse me if I am repeating myself...but this road was still the craziest and scariest encountered! I didn't really understand at first what a 10% grade mean on the signs, but with a picture of a truck on what looked like a 45 degree angle...this means very, very steep! Em drove up and down the mountain, so you can imagine that I was a nervous wreck in the passenger seat! My poor "Black Beauty" (as Em calls my car), barely made it up the hill and I think the front brakes were burnt off on the decent!! We stopped at the top to let the car cool down, have a look at the lights of Jackson Hole below, and allow our nerves to settle a bit. Once down the other side, we went to an outdoor shop so I could buy a compass (so happy I did that!!). Then hotel, Mexican restaurant, then the famous Million Dollar Cowboy Bar for some dancing, pool and listening to a really good band! Now, I say dancing, but compared to the Wyoming folks, Em and I probably looked like we were doing a hillbilly stomp!! There weren't too many people there, but all could dance very well! One man came to our table to ask us to dance. Had we not already pegged him as a creeper, one of us might have agreed. Unfortunately, he was definitely a creeper so we both made some jokes about our terrible dancing skills and that we would make him look bad or something and then made our exit from the bar. Speaking of creepers...there was also another old man that came over and started talking to us while I was kicking Em's @$$ at pool. When he asked how we had found the place (the bar), I looked at him and with some Saskatchewan sarcasm in my voice I exclaimed to him, "THERE IS A GIANT NEON COWBOY ON THE ROOF!!" I laughed...as did Em...he didn't even crack a smile! haha oh well, I'm sure he was drunk!! Em and I were both very excited when the band started to play a little known but very fun song, "the Boys From Alabama!" We danced and spun, lost our grip, fell apart laughed our heads off and drew the attention of the band as we did this on the empty dance floor and sung along! So much fun!!

Ok. That's enough for now. We are off to an old volcanoe that we will be able to climb into!! There is apparently ice inside!...oh yeah....more ice :-( haha, nontheless, it will be cool and I don't mean just the temperature!!

ciao!