No driving today as we were taking the 9.30am express from Williams to the Grand Canyon.

We sauntered down to breakfast and entered the breakfast hall to be confronted by dozens of Koreans milling around the various breakfast bars. We were quickly shooed out and told to use the next door. Had we stumbled on a dog tasting morning, and why were there so many Koreans here?

We headed down to Williams rail station where we were treated to a gunfight as precursor to our two and a quarter hour rail journey to the rim of the Grand Canyon.

We had 'observation dome' carriage seats which would allow us to view the scenery on the top floor of the carriage as we chugged towards our destination.

We set off and were told that we had free snacks and drinks for the journey which was welcomed by the three of us with respective raised eyebrows and nods. Ade headed off for coffee and I was about to follow suit when I saw an old lady struggling up the stairs of the dome carriage with several coffees. I decided to wait for her to reach her seat when all of a sudden she tripped and deposited the complete contents of both cups of scalding hot coffee across my nether region leaving me to look as though I had wet and crapped myself at the same time. Carrie Martin and the Brickster showed extreme concern by also wetting themselves with laughter at my predicament whilst I suggested to the old lady that my understanding was that it was coffee to go not coffee to throw.

As we all settled down we soon realised that our seats allowed us to see a massive plain and nothing else. Indeed we were one hour in when someone shouted 'I can see a cow' and everyone turned to see where it was. There would be a further four cows and some Prairie dogs to view before the train pulled in to it's destination.

We had three and a half hours to view the Grand Canyon and with temperatures reaching 112 degrees we were confident that we would again be able to do without headwear and sun tan lotion. The views were simply stunning with both myself and Aden urging each other to get closer to the edge for that unforgettable photo moment. Martinez didn't want to play as he was scared of heights and decided to keep to his pre-arranged agreement of staying 20 metres from the edge which meant that he never actually got to see the Canyon itself!

In wandering around the rim(oo er matron) we bumped into the Rap music artist Snoop Doggy Dog who apparently was at the Grand Canyon for lyrical inspiration for his new concept album which would be about garden tools, female dogs and donkeys. Or has he put it ' Hoes, b****es and Ass'. We proffered some lyrical advice (I suggested the word rim would be a good one) and he promised to share the writing credits and royalties as well as offering to take a photo of the three of us with the Grand Canyon in the background and me promising him that I would get one of my sons to illegally download his album when it was released.

We were soon in need of liquid refreshment and decided to have a few cold ones before our return journey. Again we got accused of being Australians and when asking the barman whether he was North Korean he suddenly appreciated how offensive he had been.

To my surprise we were travelling back by train in 'coach class' not by coach and there was much tittering among mer colleagues as they appreciated my misunderstanding.

We therefore joined the train in trailer trash class, the irony to this writer being it was actually like the inside of a coach.

Once we got moving I realised that we would actually get a different view of the same tedious scenery that we had experienced on the way out. I heard a child say that they had just seen a dead cow. Perhaps it was one of those spotted earlier in the day that had just dies of boredom.

On returning to Williams we decided to have a more relaxed evening deciding to share a three foot diameter pizza and some lite beer. We headed back to our hotel, which in the dark could well have had a mountain view, and discussed our movements for the morrow.