Kayenta, AZ

So.... Arizona.... I can't say this is my favorite state at the moment...

Crossing into AZ was fun. We passed in at the Four Corners, so you could say we crossed 4 state lines in one day!--nay, in about 15 seconds. It was the spot I was most excited for coming in to the trip and while a bit anticlimatic for my tastes, was definitely pretty cool. Hopefully one of hte group photos we took made it up on somebody's blog... check Meredith's. The ride before that was great, lots of descending; after that was not so hot, or rather, plenty hot and therefore was an unbearable 6 miles into Teec Nos Pos.

Along the way we ran into Ray who just graduated from Northeastern and is riding cross-country alone!! He is fairly unbelievable. He's already made it here from Boston with his bike loaded down with bags of stuff and he carries a pack on his back as he rides. Talk about hardcore. It's fairly incredible to see him. He's going to ride with us for a couple of days--to the Grand Canyon--and then head further south into Phoenix. At this point I can't imagine heading any further south and having the weather get much hotter... We're getting up at 4 am now and leaving at sunrise to try to beat the heat. So far it seems to be working, sort of, as we seem to be rolling into our host sites around noon, but still that's 6 hours of exercise before lunch! Still can't believe I sit on a bike seat that long...

We're riding through an absolutely beautiful part of the country i've never really experienced before, even if it is practically barren. We're riding through the Navajo Reservation now. Where we're staying tonight is at the entrance into Monument Valley (though we're not riding through it)....interestingly enough there are lots of German tourists around and I heard some women speaking Italian too.... crazy that people actually travel abroad to these random, middle-of-practically-nowhere places just to come see it. There are some lengthy rolling (sort of, not really) hills all around us and you jsut see all these mesas of sandstone on one side of hte road and steeper, more jagged rocks on the other. The extreme change of the terrain from CO to here is pretty unbelievable since it happened so fast.

So that's all for now. More job hunting to do... anyone want to employ me?

CVH