We woke at 5:00am just two miles from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Having checked the night before we knew sunrise was predicted for 6:33am on the 3rd of October. We were washed, dressed and out the door for the back of 6:00am and headed due north, before we'd have to start following the canyon rim east to find a good viewing point. But, to our initial disappointment, the sky had already started to lighten! Did this mean the sun had already broken over the edge of the canyon?!

Many of the viewing points on the South Rim obviously face North, and we passed many parked cars at these designated areas ... but navigator eatrordinaire Ailsa Kemp had spotted a curve of the road on the map that seemed fairly close to the edge that faced East, towards the sunrise ... maybe we could stop there! And sure enough we were the only car to pull up here (most cars were travelling too fast round the bend to take evasive action and pull over). We hopped the fence and spent an hour watching the sun come up whilst having makeshift breakfast of chocolate cookies washed down with Mountain Dew (it's all we had in the car!).

We followed the scenic road East along the canyon rim stopping at various viewing points: Grandview, Navajo Point, and Desert View. It was at desert view, the final point before leaving the national park, that we decided to fuel up ... but found the gas station was closed and wouldn't open until 9:00am. NINE O'CLOCK?! It felt like bloomin' lunch time already and it wasn't even nine o'clock! So we pottered about at Desert View for a bit - admiring the Watchtower designed by Mary Coulter who was (I read) responsible for some of the most important architecture in the Southwest in the early 20th century. The Watchtower was the first custom built viewing point for tourists at the Grand Canyon and the site was chosen for it's view West - the longest straight stretch of the canyon.

Finally the Chevron opened, we fuelled up, and were back on the road, heading for Monument Valley: a foot step over the state line into Utah. To Ailsa's surprise I drove straight past the turn off for Monument Valley as we entered Utah and instead dragged her into a game of 'count-the-mile-markers-in-Utah'. I told her there'd be something special at mile marker 13. So off we counted: "1, 2, 3 ..." (Ailsa was getting bored of this game by '7') and as we approached 13 Ailsa was still remarking: "But where are we going? There's nothing here? It's only desert ahead!" Even as we could see mile marker 13 ahead she was still bemused - there was nothing here! As I got to marker 13 I spun the car round in a precarious U-turn, and there in front of us was the highway that leads down and up to Monument Valley, one of the most photographed sites in America (I'm not kidding, Google Image search 'monument valley' or tag on 'mile marker 13' and you'll see it). Of course it's most famous in Ailsa and my eyes as being the point where Forrest Gump stops running! We spent a little while taking photos and recreating Forrest's last paces along with two biker dudes and biker gal. The road was remarkably quiet so I could stand in the middle of the highway taking pictures until Ailsa shouted "CAR!".

We took the road back into Monument Valley national park but were warned that taking the scenic drive involved badly unpaved roads, many pot holes and loose ground. Instead of the scenic drive we settled ourselves on a high vantage point of the outdoor cafe overlooking the enormous rock formations. We put our feet up with a coffee and a tea watching the chaos of cars below, struggling with the poor road conditions, watching folk taking pictures knowing that none of them had OUR picture from the Forrest Gump road.

After our hot drinks (and maybe a slice of pecan pie) we headed for our accommodation at the nearby town of Kayenta (which was only established in 1986!). It was already 'thriving' with a McDonalds, Burger King and Subway, but served as the perfect place to catch up on laundry to cover us until we got home. The laundromat itself was an experience to behold! I described it to Ailsa as being like a Mexican wedding, but populated by native American Indians. It was organised chaos! Four generations of the same family doing laundry at the same time, kids running about in little more than nappies ... and me sitting in the middle of the madness typing up our travel blog with my bluetooth keyboard. At one point a 10-12 year old boy tried to sell me some flatbread he'd made that afternoon. I had what must have been a 15 minute conversation with the woman that ran the laundromat about how I would need to buy some detergent to put in the machine. She couldn't get her head around the fact I only wanted to do one wash!

There weren't many options for lodgings in Kayenta, it's in the middle of nowhere, but the place we stayed in did offer better food than the rest of the town had on show. We enjoyed a mix of authentic Mexican food (fajitas, enchiladas, tacos ...) cooked and served by American Indians. It was all very good, but reminded me of something Derek once said to me about Panda Express: "If it says 'Chinese' and is made [in America] by Mexicans, it's not Chinese."