Hi all, I have just got offa 12 hour flight from LAX to Auckland and can\'t check into my hostel until 2, so I thought I would spend some time on the internet uploading pictures and adding postcards. I have lots to tell you since Slim\'s so here\'s the next day.... We got up early at Slim\'s loaded up the van as usual and then headed to monument valley. Before reaching their we stopped at a famous scene in the film Forest Gump, where Tom Hanks is running up the road with the mountains in the background. We had to get group photos and individual photos, which is quite a task when there is traffic on the road & 14 group photos to take. Luckily we managed to avoid the cars, but there was a few funny moments when cars would be coming from behind us and Chris would tell us to wait a bit longer to take the snap! Chris drove us around monument valleyand showed us all of the landmarks. This was place was only amazing - some of the natural beauty out in the desert is unreal. We then headed for the Grand Canyon. When we got to the Grand Canyon Chris made us all close our eyes, hold hands and walk down to the edge. We then all opened our eyes on the count of 3 to the most amazing views! We spent about an hour at this spot before heading to our campsite to get setup for the night. The plan was to have dinner, possibly one or two beers and then hit the sack early as we were all getting up to see the sun rise over the grand canyon. Nice plan, but at midnight it would officially be Kelly\'s 19th birthday, so we couldn\'t go to bed early - could we? Myself, Martin, Kavitt, Amy and Kelly started playing drinking games and just having the craic. When it turned midnight we made a load of noise and were quickly told to turn it down by others in the group who had gone to bed early. It was a fierce cold night, so some one came up with the good idea of all kipping in the one tent - well all bar Kavitt as no-one could sleep with his snoring. We hit the sack at around 3ish which was a bad idea as we had to be up at 4. The next thing I know Kelly comes into the tent and says \"wake up, do you know what time it is?\" 4 O\'Clock was the obvious answer from me, but no 7:30 was the time and the sun had risen a long time ago. The girls tried to wake me, Martin and Kavitt before they all headed off for the sunrise, but they hadn\'t a snow ball in hells chance! Ah well - I was told it was a nice view. To add to the hangover I had a nice hike down the Grand Canyon to start my day off. We could do what ever we wanted so a group of us (Hoon, Nada, Kav, Martin and Matt) decided to go off on a shorter hike than what some of the others were doing. It was fine going down into the Canyon, but coming back up was tough on the old legs. Matt was blazing the way back up with me behind him, but every now and then I had to stop to take some water on board. I paid no notice to it at the time, but matt wasn\'t really drinking much water. He would regret this later on as he got very ill and had to go to a hospital and get an IV drip. He stayed with us for two more days in a hotel, but this was pretty much the last part of Matt\'s trip. It was a shame as he was a sound bloke and we were having some good times up till then. Sorry you missed out on the last few days buddy & hope you are fully recovered now? That afternoon me, Kav, Robyn and Martin went for a helicopter ride over the canyon. Now that was awesome. Some of the views we seen up in the air no picture or words could describe. It was amazing. The only bad thing was that the hour we were in the air seemed to go all too quickly. When we got back from the helicopter ride Amy & Kelly were back on the brew still celebrating Kelly\'s b\'day. In all I think we celebrated Kelly\'s b\'day for about 3 if not 4 days! Unfortunatly the girls didn\'t pace them selves too well and were both in bed for 9ish. Chris had driven 100 mile round trip to get Kelly an ice cream b\'day cake whilst we were all on our hike, but it wasn\'t until the next day that she realised there wasice cream in it!!! Ah what a nice bloke Chris was to go to all that trouble. I\'m sure Kelly appreciated it. Well done dude! Well that was the Grand Canyon apart from another late night of drinking. I will start another postcard of the next venue and sign off for now. Adios, Mick