Christmas Day! We all got up and had some coffee and then went to look at Santa's presents. Amazingly Santa managed to find us and we got lots of Nevada goodies, Thelma & Louise headscarfs, keyrings etc. We also opened our presents from Mum & Dad, I got thermals, t-shirt, chocolate and a really nice scarf from Claire's Mum. I called home and spoke to Mum & Dad and thanked them for the presents. They seem to be having a quiet Christmas but Mark has been to visit briefly. Claire spoke to her family for about an hour and then we had a huge brunch.
The afternoon was spent preparing dinner and tidying the house. Marcia's Grandparents arrived and we had dinner - Prime Rib - give me a turkey any day. We Trivial Pursuit in the evening and then retired to bed.
Friday 26th December
Today we went to the Great Basin National Park. We went into the caves which were stunning and then onto the border for dinner and some games of pool.
Saturday 27th December
There was a kind of party today but not so's you'd know. We had soup and then Becky, Aaron, Jared etc left at about 6:30pm. I think I spent the evening watching more movies and working out our next route.
Sunday 28th December
Got up at 5:30am and we left after filling with gas at about 7am, and made our way down the dirt track and back into Utah. We went through Zion National Park, after locating a cash machine, weeping rock, narrows etc. I think we were a bit spoilt by Arches. We went through a tunnel, through a mountain and then did a trail to see the mountain we just drove up. Then we stopped at Chevron for the night.
Monday 29th December
To the Grand Canyon, through the painted desert and Vermillion Cliffs. Words cannot express the sheer majesty of this place so I won't try. We got to the 2nd viewpoint and the ignition broke! We hitched back to the desert view and called the AAA. After an hour we called again and he arrived about 45 minutes later. First of all he said we needed a new ignition cylinder but then he tightened it with pilers and said we could go on our way. We managed to see sunset and then went to the Grand Canyon village to camp the night.
<these are extracts from my diaries written whilst travelling and working in Canada and the US in '97-'98>
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