All the big names

Hi everyone,

it's been a little while since we've let you know what we've been up to, and that has been mainly because of two things: the availability of internet, and we have been so dang (Texan for 'damn') busy. Try 2000 miles, 3 National Parks, 2 thunderstorms and the biggest creepy crawlies you have ever seen keeping you awake all night long in only 7 nights, camping all the way.

First off was the Grand Canyon. You know, that place is big. I mean, it's unfathomable how big it is until you are a teeny, tiny dot in a photo of a chasm in the ground which opens up to a mile deep and 17 miles across. We gave ourselves the day off hiking that day, considering we were driving over 500 miles to get to our spot in Monument Valley for the night.

I feel like I'm name-dropping a bit here. Grand Canyon, Monument Valley... yep, you read right. We pitched up at Monument Valley just in time for one of the more spectacular showing you'll see as the Earth turns on its axis: sunset. If the gravity-defying, wind-carved sandstone fingers pointing into the sky can't say it alone, the burning sky behind them, silhouetting them against the Utah sky screamed it at us: LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME! And them our campsite happened to show us this all over again for sunrise the next morning.

The next day was a big driving day again, the 400 miles to Santa Fe taking us a good 8 hours and leaving us hungry and tired and totally unprepared for showing up in the dark at a quirky little state park just West of town, where there seemed no one to direct us to a spot. I needed feeding, and Ben isn't ready to argue when this is the case, so we had to then head out in search of sustenance. After an ok sandwich in what we could tell even in the dark was a beautiful, arty city, we drove back for some sleep. But we were locked out. A curfew in a campsite and no way of unlocking the heavy padlocks or getting passed the spiky exit-only route, our options were limited to walking in the dark with only a vague sense of the direction of a site. We found it, to our great relief, and spent a restless night hoping our car didn't get jacked.

Santa Fe is just beautiful, and it is FULL of art and (irresistible) jewellery. We were lucky enough to be there on a day where all the local artists were showcasing their work, and spent several enjoyable hours in the sunshine admiring their crafts: stonemasonry, wood carving, photography, oil painting, watercolours, clay sculpture... Anything you can think of.

Of course, we had to make tracks - this is a roadtrip after all - and we had another appointment. With the extra terrestrial of New Mexico, the epicentre of this community being in Roswell, a happy detour en route to Texas. It was a short photo stop but there was definitely a funny feeling in our stomachs. Or maybe that was because we'd had our first McDonalds of the trip and were feeling a little guilty..