When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers,
The moon and the stars which you set in place --
What is man that you should be mindful of him,
Or the son of man that you should care for him?
---Psalm 8: 4-5

Tusayan, Arizona

The first thing this morning, we went to Montezuma's Castle, a cliff dwelling. You walk along the bottom of the canyon and look over at the houses. There's a virtual cache at "building A" further down the path. We saw a kid from Lafayette watching a lizard, and talked a little about Indiana and Wolf Park.

From there we went to Montezuma's Well, a collapsed limestone cave which is a catchbasin, an oasis in the desert. We walked down to see the dwellings along these walls. These are Sinagua dwellings, and the people just disappeared. Where did they go? What happened, disease, war, famine?

The terrorists would like US to disappear, like the Hohokam or the Sinaloa. They would like archeologists in the future to wonder what happened to the Merkins, who were ubiquitous and then just vanished. Me, I don't want that to happen.

We drove through Flagstaff and headed toward the canyon. We saw a "Wildlife Trail" and stopped. Unfortunately, the only thing we saw was a crow and we did hear another bird. That was disappointing.

Onward to a virtual at "Bedrock," a silly little tourist trap. However, it was a good place to stop for lunch, anyway. (I had a dino-burger). I spilled my drink, which was embarrassing.

And so onward, into Grand Canyon National Park. Rich was thrilled yet again by his Golden Age pass, since the entry fee into this park is $20! He was driving along the road toward the Visitor's Center when I spied it! I felt like shouting STOP THE CAR!!! That's the GRAND CANYON out there! It was amazing. We'd travelled all this way to see this, but I was still astonished at the sight.

We found a parking place, and went to ooh and ahh for awhile, then to the Visitor's Center to learn about shuttle buses and all. We then went down to the Park Village and parked and started off with the red shuttle that does the west end of the Canyon. We had virtual caches to pick up, and beautiful scenery to admire. We got off at the next stop and started to walk. We fell in with a couple from New Zealand and talked to them for awhile. When we, three stops down, got back on the bus, Rich didn't realize that we were passing up a cache. The GPSr didn't function too well in the bus. We can quit anytime, right, so we had to figure out how to manage the shuttles and get back to pick it up, and still be somewhere nice for sunset. We rode to the end, Hermit's Rest, and then back to the first stop the eastward bus leaves, and then back to the cache we missed. Meanwhile, every two seconds I'm saying "isn't it magnificent!" or some other amazed saying. This is the first place I've seen that rivals Pacific Grove for the title of the Most Beautiful Place in the World.

We not only saw mules heading back to the barn, but the mules trekking up Bright Angel Trail. I must re-read that book! We talked to two women who will be hiking down on Thursday and spending the night, then getting back up by helicopter. That would be the way to go.

We got on the shuttle at Hermit's Rest and went back to Moran Point to watch the sunset. The full moon had already risen, but after the ooh and ahh of sunset, it came into its own for some oohing and ahhing of its own.

There was lots of room when we got on the bus, so we could sit, and he started picking people up to get them out of the canyon. We got back to our car about 8:30 and drove out to Tusayan to our motel. What a gorgeous room! I wish we were staying longer.

You always worry when you look forward to something forever, in this case 39 years, that it will be a letdown. The Grand Canyon doesn't disappoint.

High point: Grand Canyon. All of it.

Lowspot: Missed "the Restaurant." (Turns out it wasn't on.)