8th December
James met me at the airport to pick up Kate & came back with us to Camp Verde for a couple of days. It was fun, but Kate was jetlagged & James is quite intense, although knowledgeable and full of beans. He showed me some trickshots and he drove us up to Montezumas Well, just round the corner from David's. It was an impressive canote type affair with caves and cliff dwellings built into the structure. We took some photos and were graced with yet more Orbs. The next day we went to Paltatki, followed by V-Bar-V the following day. It is famous for having thousands of petroglyphs and being the largest petroglyph site in the Verde Valley. However they were all on one wall only!

A few days later we hit the Phoenix hostel (again) and had to deal with the crazy owner, who had now taken a liking to my English charm. Kate & I shared a room, then the next morning checked out the hugh Heard Museum, where there was an extensive and simply amazing collection of Katchina dolls, as well as many fairly average artifacts. "Around the world in 80 lays" Kate suggested. I disagreed, in a post-modern society it should be "Around the world in 80 gays". Obviously that would not be my personal mission because I am a hetrosexual.

Peublo Grande was next on the agenda, which is an adobe village with interesting arth energies all focussing in the central shrine. It also has the "Hole in the Rock" in the distance, that was used an an archaeoastronomical Winter Solstice alignment system, probably to regulate agricultural practices. After that, we visited the absurd Mystery Castle, a ridiculous house made of rubbish, but with some interesting stories. One being that after he died, his daughter could not open the cellar until 1948, and when she did she found 2 x $500 dollar bundles, some gold nuggetts- that had been found in the mountains and a valentines card. We met her daughter and exclaimed to Kate "It's not the way it should be. I remember when things were the way they shoul be. I remember when MGM came to these mountains to make movies". We then, went hiking into the Southern Mountains on a tip about some ancient petroglyphs, that we easily found at the base of the mountains. We then decided to hike to the top and were rewarded with an amazing panorama view of Phoenix, including a major fire that we witnessed on the road we had driven down, with the drama of fire engines turning up to tackle it.

20th December 2008
We drove from Phoenix to Tuscon, via Casa Grande, a most interesting structure that has been proved to be a major archaeoastronomical temple. Kate got done for stealing some loose pottery. What a criminal! Ha ha. Funny though, because the original archaeologists had completely buggered up the site, although they were trying to preserve it, by using chicken wire & cement to "fix it". Doh! But th moisture the caliche walls, made them deterioate much quicker. Ironically, over the road,  previous site once existed, that was bigger & more ancient, but now there is a WalMart on it. Respect. After stopping in a cool diner in Coolidge and made our way to some more petroglyphs hidden behind a "Christian new-Age" centre called the "Redemption Renewal Chapel". Puke or what? It had a stupid crucificx actually on the rocky outcrop where the petroglyphs were (called 'Picture Rocks'). It was based in Saguaro cactus park on the way to Tuscon and the petroglyjhs were very inspiring. They had built a labyrinth, next to them, so we did the walk & felt refreshed and ready to face the next stage of our trip into New Mexico.  

Before we hit New Mexico, we had a day or two in Tucson in a great Hostel and a cool cafe called 'Shot in the Dark' where I met a girl I once shared a truck with on the way to an Amma event in London! A guy we met later in the cafe told us he was stuck working in Walkmart, who because of his inane job, told us "every day I feel like stabbing myself in the face". We strolled the streets of Tuscon, that is very very cool, arty, green and shamanic town. I could live her! That was until I met one of the residents, called Dionisysis. What a nutter, although a very clued-up, inspiring one who did a street performance for us of the highest quality.

So with grand plans for the Winter Solstice, we stayed in Tuscon, shopping & eating bagels. Later that day we met Ben & Chris, two English guys with a proper sense of humour. Eventually after much jollity, they decided to come with us on a road trip. They tolerated us as we went via the Kartchner Caverns, a stupid cave that was supposed to be "the most impressive in the world". After a bad decision, I was in the caves with Kate. Yes it was amazing, however, at the finale of the trip, they sat us down tightly on a concrete bench, then I almost died inside. They played that totally shit cheesy song, with a timed lightshow, lighting up certain areas of the massive cave & column. A deep cringe began to surface, I almost felt humiliated. This was the worst possible choice for a guided tour of a cave. A tinny stereo, with me sitting right next to the substandard speaker was a total nightmare. I was stunned, gutted, angry and realised this was one of the worst experiences of my life. Can people be so tacky as to design this 'experience'. Naturally, being English, I demanded my money back, and wrote on the Official Complaints form, the deep greivance and pain I recieved from this ludicrous choice of music in a cave. For gods sake, how unnatural is that, crap new-age music in a deep cavern within the earth!?

We picked up the boyz, laughed about are experience and headed to Tombstone, the famous cowboy town with the Ok Corrall. Wyatt Earp etc. It was a ghost town, as no one was there, although designed for hundreds of tourists. Back through the border patrol, we met a very stupid security guy. He askec us "Where are you from" - "England" we said. "England in Europe?". "Er, yes". "What?, England Germany". "No", we explained "just England". " But in England like in Germany?". "Er, no. Just England!" we repeated. "Ok. OK move along". "Oh no" Kate told me "These guys have big guns. Its the end of the world". We got to Motel 6, hung out with the boys and even went back to Tombstone, just so we could enjoy another sophisticated conversation with the border control again. We grabbed the boys, but they had decided to drop the hood & head up to Flagstaff. Bugger, they were great fun. We cruised through the New Mexico border, checked out some derelict buildings: a motel, dgarage and hop. Very cool photos too. Being a scumbag, i even took a used travel wheely-bag that had obviously been stolen, looted and dumped here a very long time ago, that was to come in useful soon. We hossed it to the Chiricahua monument, and it was spookily cloudy that we even drove though, and very cold.

Christmas Eve
We sit in the car park overlooking White Sands missile range, where thy detonated the first ever atomic bomb, aside a right-big missile. Oooooh. On the radio there was talk on www.democracynow.org about taking Rumsfeld and Cheney to court over charges of authorising torture. Excellent. After a night in a cheesy motel and a the worlds worst 'all-beef' hot dog, in Alamagordo. Hesitantly, I agreed to go into the White sand dunes made of selenite crystals, but when we got in there it was spectacular, with a panorama of Mountain ranges in the distance. It was hot and sunny and a warm version of snow, where we sunbathed for a couple of hours. Nice. We then drove through the white Sands missile range where the first atomic bomb was detonated. We drive up Highway 54 to another petroglyph site. It called the 'three rivesr' petroglyph site, so we check out the trading post on the way in, I get a very good strong coffee & we drive along a dead-straight road for several miles. We park at the locked entrance & walk up to the rocky outcrops to check out the rock art in the light of the sertting sun, setting behind the Sacramento Mountains. Excellent set of petroglyphs. Check the photos for yourselves. We eventually made it to the Aklbaquerque Hoostel, a quain, old-fashioned house with beautiful rooms & decor. Very nice people and an invite to Christmas dinner tomorrow. Lovely.

Christmas Day Onwards
Weird but excellent Christmas 2008. Called family & Nandan for christmas chats via skype and had the greates Xmas dinner I could ever expect in a random hostel. Plus wine and drinks, on the house. Chilled out, watched a movie and prepared for Petroglyph National Monument the next day. We caught a glimpse of old-town Albaquerque on a sunny afternoon walk & I managed to pick up a cactus, whose tiny pricks bothered me all day! On a rainy & very cold day, we checked out the thousands of petroglyphs. The opposite of the glorious white sands day out. Hard black chunks, in freezing cold rain & a bit of snow. Much of the rock art was hard to see due to the rain that "invisibilizes" the petroglyphs. Kate liked that. Ha Ha. We cruised to Santa Fe, after checking out two other sites in the complex. The hostel herte was also excellent and had a ridiculous amount of free food that gets delivered daily by the local health food stores & tonnes of christmas dinner too. We stayed for an extra night, got fat, Kate locked the keys in the car & got given lots of free food and carried on with our travels on 28th. We checked out Santa Fe town for a few hours but go cold & bored & went back for turkey soup. Taos was the next destination, but the roads were icy & there was a few feet of snow on the hilltops. Kate had arranged our first "couchsurfing" night at a bloke called Dan's. Before we got there though, we visited Bandelier National Monument. This was a beautiful valley, with cliff dwellings of the highest order and some impressive pictographs. Reluctantly we agreed to go with Dan to his house after meeting him in a cafe in Taos. It turned out to be a most entertaining, spaghetti-choking evening with some 'strong' medicine to contend with.

In Bloomfield, we stayed in a cockroach infested motel that was disgusting & brilliant at the same time, getting prepoared for the highlight of my entire trip, Chaco Canyon. The problem was, we had to travel over twenty miles on a dirt track that was very muddy & the truck was not a 4-wheel drive. After slamming my thumb in the car door and a stressful hour of driving, we got stuck on an icy hill & started literally, slipping back down the hill, with cars behind us. Hmmm, I eventually negotiated our reverse path down & we headed out of the complex, gutted. However, on the way out the road had got muddier & after a slimy swerve we were stuck on annother slope. Weird day all round, but we got help from a Mexican ranger who managed to help us out. Phew.

New Years Eve onwards
We hossed it to get to Gallup to get into Canyon de Chelly the next day, a magnificent ancient settlement with stunning scenery. We checked out the south-rim drive and parked up to take a long walk down the canyon to see the famous 'White house cliff-dwelling', that has a colossal amount of rock on the cliff face above, bewildering me how it hasnt caved in yet. The canyon has been a part of several cowboy films and we got some excellent photographs. We cruised back to Camp Verde to celebrate New Years Eve with David, Jennifer and their guests, photographer and author Martin Gray, Chris O'Brien and a cool dude called Oscar??. We hung out in Campe Verde, checking out more of Sedona, Jerome & fixing up the truck and checking the next stage of ourt trio...Californiaaaaa. Wahey.