Day 5.......

Saturday......

There is so much to take in here in this vast, vast...OMG...really freakin huge ( but in a good way) beautiful desert.

Our hosts have been amazing, a little like being guests in our own home, except for the whole desert thing, oh and much smaller dogs, and flashflood worries and well.... you get the idea. :) fonts of knowledge about all to see and do, as well as great company.

We hit the Grand Canyon on a weekend that offered all the national parks free access. To take advantage of this, we also had to prepare oursleves for the crowds...eeeekk the humanity.

It wasn't that bad and sooooo worth it. ( Okay it was pretty bad and the group of curiously attired, 60 yr. old umm something ladies that had to keep telling everyone "WE ARE HAVING THE MOST FUN EVER......REALLY THE MOST FUN, YOU JUST CAN'T IMAGINE...REALLY THE MOST FUN!!!!" I wanted to believe them, but cynical me think

s they were trying to convince themselves more )it was still worth it though.

We stopped at the Watchtower and took some pics, then had a really amazing lunch at the historical Mary Coulter designed, "El Torva", home to the

Harvey Girls in their day ( yes I thought about Judy Garland a lot ) Google Mary Coulter..what an incredible woman.

We scored a window seat looking out at the Grand canyon :) awesome.

The view came complete with the beautiful sunshine, a telescope and a cowboy sleeping under a tree in his chaps......sheer perfection.

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We then hiked through the Tusayan ruins further down the canyon.

A very tucked away treasure deep in the forest of the Grand Canyon.

Daiv played flute to the ruins of homes (their Kivas) and there was no one else around at all.......bliss.

Our ride home took us to a series of

Navajo trading posts and Daiv and I spent a long time talking to a couple of really great Navajo artisans....so warm and talented - so excited to share their knowledge about all things Navajo.

Daiv has found the perfect turquoise bracelet and we heard about the rattle snake that visited the same spot on the Little Colorado River I was standing on that was killed and hung up over a fence post , just recently ( shudders ) I think she "Patricia" enjoyed telling me that one. She did share two huge glasses of sun tea while she told this story and it was freakin' delicious and we were thirsty.

I have also been ummmm shopping and have some truly spetacular jewelry, made on the Navajo Nation to bring home :)

The eve saw us all sitting out under the stars watching the meteor showers and talking over wine til the wee hours :).... really really realllllly good here! Look at this sunset...yup...every day!