Another busy night at work. Will be glad when Friday comes and I can have a day off. Sleep is good.

Day Six
On Sunday night, we had made plans to meet for one last breakfast together. I got up early and snuck out of the room, trying not to wake up Dan and the kids...went down to the lobby to wait for Variol Farseer and John, as we were going to ride to breakfast together. Before either of them arrived, my little son, Mr. Sunshine Stevie came trotting down to me. "I woke up and saw you were gone, Mom. I knew you were going out someplace to eat breakfast. Can I come, too?" So the two of us set out with the two High Lords when they arrived.

We met the remaining festers at the Copper Canyon Cafe, which had huge portions of good food at a good price. And then it was time to say good by to Fist and Birdy and Leper Messiah. Have I mentioned that goodbyes suck?? Saying goodbye to Fist nearly killed me.

Went back to the hotel room to pack up and collect the remainder of my family. Then headed over to Danlo's to pick him up. It was time for the Grand Canyon! It was also time to say goodbye to Variol Farseer who was to fly back to Canada that afternoon, and to Lady Tam for a couple of days, who would not be able to accompany us on our trip.

Danlo and John rode in the Lordsmobile, and my family and I rode in my baby Jeep. The freeway passed near all sorts of interesting places, like Acoma Pueblo, one of the oldest continuously occupied towns in the US (over a thousand years), and some volcanic badlands (El Malpais National Monument). We ran into a huge rainstorm in northern Arizona...we were making jokes that the wet Michigan weather followed us everywhere we went throughout the trip.

We stopped off in Winslow, Arizona for gas, and so that John could be

Quote: Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona...

and then we headed to the Meteor Crater. It was HUGE. The horizon was endless, and you could see the huge storm we had driven through. It looked even bigger...and hey!!! It was heading our way!!!

We basicly raced the storm for the rest of the afternoon. Dan and I had planned on treating Danlo and John to dinner at the historic Navajo trading post in Cameron, but the storm caught us so we didn't stop. We outran it for a bit, and briefly stopped at an overlook in the Navajo Reservation so John and Danlo could see the canyon of the Little Colorado River...but as the storm began to catch us again, we drove on, hoping to get to the Grand Canyon before the deluge hit.

And we managed! We got to Desert View and its lovely Anasazi style tower on the Rim just a little before the rain came. Oh, I wish I could see faces so filled with awe and wonder as John and Danlo's every day! Neither one had ever seen the Canyon before.

When the rain started in earnest, we headed for Maswick Lodge, where we all had rooms and/or cabins for the night. We rested a bit, and the rain stopped,  then all went looking for John, who's room was not near ours or Danlo's (we were in a quad cabin together, with rooms in opposite corners). Somehow Danlo and I got seperatedfrom Dan and the boys, and we couldn't find them OR John. So we said to heck with it and went in to dinner, and found John already eating. So we sat together and enjoyed dinner. Dan and the boys came in just as we were finishing...Danlo and John and I went outside to see the stars and smell the fantastic smell of the desert following a rain. When Dan and the boys were done, they collected me for bedtime, and Danlo and John were planning to go for a beer or two at the little sports bar in the main lodge building.