As President George W. Bush starts his new term in charge of civilization's most powerful nation, winning the election race by grossly manipulating 'moral values' that stroked the conservative bible bashing states into apoplexy - I find solace, from my despair for the world, by slipping out the door and driving north through Arizona's National Parks that conserve and protect this planets phenomenal landscapes. Route 89 effortlessly unwinds me through volcanic lava flows and non stop Ponderosa Pines floating on black lava sand dunes into vast open Sunset Crater. 460 years have passed since Coronado, a Spanish explorer, was traveling this way. He found the Southwest's rapid red river and named it Colorado while tracing it north, as I do, through Grand Canyon's vermilion abyss. This majestic valley is a glimpse at time and natures 1.7 billion year colorful plan. Drifting down into this ancient kaibab limestone layer and bright angel shale with views into earths deep and distant past, the silence is golden. A women chatters on her cell phone high above in mankind's mayhem, but my isolation is gently enhanced by air pressure wing sounds from an, as yet, unseen hawk taking advantage of the Canyon's updrafts emanating perhaps from a tranquil bliss millions of years in the making.