Of Cliff dwellings and Canyons

Finally I get down to penning some thoughts about a road trip. This would probably be my 5th or 6th attempt. The previous few attempts having been discarded because of lack of interest and a sudden drying up of my vocabulary. Nevertheless, as they say its better late then never.

After a whole lot of speculation of "will we's" and "wont we's", we finally headed out for a 2 day trip. First stop was Montezuma Castle. I really dont know whats so castle like in this monument. Honestly it was no bigger than our apartment. Right that was a little too much of an exaggeration I know, but still....

It was a wonder to see a building built right up there on the walls of a cliff, though. The only accessible point of entry to this monument is a ladder which could be pulled up to cut off the entry. Well that was when people used to access the monument. There is restriction on the entry currently because of the extensive damage caused to the ruins. I wish we were allowed to go inside and see though. It was not all that bad but then one of my friends aptly termed the place to be 'bakwaas'.

Next stop was the Montezuma Well. Honestly it wasnt all that a wonder. The people around the monuments described the history and the importance of the place as though there was nothing in this world to beat the beauty and the significance of the place. That was when I realized how rich India is and how sometimes we neglect the importance of the profound heritage that we have. The incredible thing about the well was that there was a constant supply of water, and no-one supposedly knows how deep the water went. Some of the flora around the well was creepy and in a way strangely attractive. Though some part of the well looked nothing more than a ditch to me. Speaking of which my friend had a gala time trying to click an incredible number of pictures of what looked like sewage water ( No offense buddy, but had to take that out somewhere ).

Moving on we, went to Walnut Canyon where we trekked a small little trail and saw quite a few cave dwellings which were in ruins. They were small enough for a dwarf ( probably 4 ft )to fit in. It was actually amazing to see such crude and old developments of such habitats which had neat demarcations of a storage room and a living room. The trek was really good, and the company made it even more better. There were crazy pictures taken at probably every step of the trek, from crazy angles with people doing all kinds of crazy actions.

Finally we ended up in Grand Canyon which looked very different from the last time when I had seen it. It was speckled with snow all over and looked really good. The view from the rim is really grand. Again after another session of a thousand clicks and a session of free, unwanted skating ( because of the slippery iced ground ) we headed back to the motel.

The final day was real good fun. We went skiing!!!!!!

All of us who tried our hands at skiing fell at least a thousand times. Well some of us even managed to fall like a million times. Bottom line is that skiing is not as easy as it looks. But if you manage to get through the initial learning stages it is insanely good. At the end of the day all of us remember 'GO GO GO' and 'Wedge Wedge Wedge'!!!!!!!