I had a ridiculously early start to my day yesterday. I set the alarm for 5.30 so that I had time for quick morning ablutions before meeting my bus at 6.20.

I felt like I took ages to get ready and left the room in a hurry before checking my phone for the time. 05.40! So, I went downstairs and waited bleary eyed with all the other tourists waiting for their coach trip to the Grand Canyon to begin.

A chatty Australian woman ignored the obvious signs of me not being a morning person, droopy eyes and barely stifled yawns, and came over to me to ask if I was going to the Grand Canyon. I confirmed that I was and then she chatted away to me, moaning about her poor put upon husband who was standing right next to her. They have obviously been married for centuries and he completely ignored her moaning and digs at him. She managed in the space of ten minutes to tell me all about her son (he's not married, but has a child with his girlfriend who he lives with) before she hurried off to her coach.

My mini bus arrived a few minutes later and took me to the Planet Hollywood hotel again where we had to register for the day and I had to pay my fee. As we were getting off the mini bus a chap behind me asked "hablas espanol?" Before thinking I replied "si" and quickly realised that I could hardly remember any of my spanish, it has just been so long. He asked what we were doing and where we had to go, so I reached through the depths of my brain to pull out a fuddled "hay que pagar" - you have to pay, before running to the other end of the room so that I could be alone in my misery at not remembering a language I spoke so well only 5 years ago. I suppose it was only 6.30 in the morning, not when I am at my best by any means!

I paid my fee and recieved my coupon for 'breakfast' and a bright pink sticker that I was to stick on my tee shirt so that I could be easily identified as belonging to my group. 'Breakfast' was a nutri-grain bar and a cup of tea with no milk, but the cup of tea went a long way at that time of the morning.

We then boarded our coach, and I tried to hide my irritation as an extremely annoying loud woman boarded the coach with her family group of about 20 and quickly went about ordering them all what to do, shouting down the whole bus in the process, just in case any of us were interested in what she was saying. It was so early and this woman was intruding on my morning thoughts, it took me all my strength not to stand up and tell her to shut up! but somehow my other part of my brain managed to tell me to calm down, you will be on the coach with this woman for the entire day, so just ignore it and maybe she will be quiet once the coach sets off.

Eventually at about 7.15 we reversed out of our parking spot and were on our way! The coach driver, Lucious, was very good and talked all the way to the Hoover Dam (a ride of about one hour). I had thought that as soon as the bus left I would try to get some sleep, but it was too interesting and I kept on looking left and right as Lucious explained what we were seeing on either side. Just before getting to the Hoover Dam we had to go through a security check point, put in place after 9/11, where security guards boarded the bus for a cursory look through our bags. It didnt take long and soon we were driving over the Hoover Dam, and wound our way up the mountain to our stopping point for a view of the Dam and 10 minutes to take pictures.

As I disembarked, the spanish speaker from earlier on tapped me on the shoulder and asked "where are we?" I didnt know how to say Hoover Dam in Spanish, so i took him to show him the sign. He nodded, still not really understanding, and promptly asked me to take his photo in front of the sign. I complied and he asked if I wanted one. He was surprised when I said no, and left him to go and take photos of the actual dam.

Our ten minutes were soon up and we were back on the bus for the next part of our journey. We had a 300 mile drive ahead of us, with two rest stops included, one of them being for lunch. Lucious put a video about the Hoover Dam on the TV for us, and with this sound in my ears and the gentle bounce of the coach on the road, I drifted off to sleep.

About an hour later I was woken when the coach started to slow down dramatically and came to a stop by the side of the road, which was on a slant, leading to the coach leaning scarily at an angle. There was muttering from Lucious and he left the bus to check something. He came back on the bus and with more muttering started the bus up and drove off very very slowly, until he came to a straight part by the side of the road and stopped again. He then got on his microphone to let us know that unfortunately the coach had blown a hose and the engine was overheating. This particular bus would not, infact, be taking us to the Grand Canyon today. He called HQ and they luckily had another driver and coach available and set about getting it ready to send to us, with a mechanic on board to try to fix our coach.

Lucious coaxed the coach into action and drove it a painstaking 5 miles up the road to where there was a small road side cafe, parked the coach in front of the cafe, and there we stayed for the next three hours as we waited for our replacement coach.

Luckily I had taken my book with me, so I stayed on the coach and alternatively read and snoozed. The annoying woman had taken her group outside so I stayed inside for as long as possible to stay away from them, until it got too hot in the coach and I finally abandoned it.

Finally, after 3 hours, our replacement coach arrived and Lucious loaded his herd up and we were soon on our way again.

Annoying bossy lady had taken the opportunity to re-arrange things again, so I couldnt sit in the same position I had held on the previous bus. I had found a seat further down the bus, which put me directly in front of the Spanish speaker. Lucious informed us that our rest stop for lunch would be cancelled, so that we could make up some time, and instead he would take us to a subway about half an hour up the road where we were to order one 6inch sub each and a drink, which would be paid for by him. I thought that the Spanish speaker might not understand what was going on, so I reached into my filing system of a brain, re-ordered my languages so that Spanish once again took third place behind English and Greek and French was pushed to fourth position. I mentally dusted off the file and opened it up to delve into my memory and the vocab section. Having prepared fully, I turned to my co-coach rider and explained to him what was happening. The error was fatal. From that moment on he was glued to my side and I became his interpreter and pal for the day.

His name was Orlando and he was a lawyer from Columbia. He had been travelling for nearly two months and had visited many countries and cities in the world, which I was surprised at as he spoke so little English and seemed to be so clueless as to what was going on.

We stopped at Subway, and thanks to the training I had received from Heather in Indiana I was able to confidently choose my sandwich, and helped Orlando choose his too.

We re-boarded the bus and ate on the go, as the driver too us the remaining three or four hours to the Grand Canyon.

I managed to ignore Orlando while we were on the bus and took an interest in the country side, pleased to see that it turned fairly lush and green as we approached Williams, Arizona, the town around one hour away from the Grand Canyon. Eventually we arrived at our destination, and Lucious explained the 30 minute and 1 and a half hour walk along the south rim, and asked us to let him know if we intended to do the walk or if we would be using the coach to take us along the south rim! Imagine that!!

I explained to Orlando what was going on, and he happily anounced that he would be doing whatever I chose to do, and when I told him, he told me he advised that yes, he would do the 90 minute walk with me and so, map in hand, and with strict instructions from Lucious to meet him at the pick up point at 6.15, we were on our way.

The view that we had of the Grand Canyon from Mather Point was just breathtaking. I tried to wrap my head around the fact that what I was looking at had taken nearly 2 BILLION years to form!! 2 Billion years??? How do you begin to imagine 2 Billion Years???

The sun was starting to head westwards and although it would be another couple of hours until sunset, the clouds were throwing their shadows across the canyon, bringing depth into the scenery that we might have lost if we had been there in the sunbleached noontime.

I could see some of the different colours in the layers of rock, and as I was gazing out at the view I became aware of this annoying buzzing sound in my ear. The buzzing sound turned out to be Orlando. He wanted a picture of the sign that said "Welcome to the Grand Canyon", and then talked constantly about the placed that he had been to, what he had been up to in Vegas (I picked up that he was probably gay when he told me that one of those things was a night out at the Chippendales' show) and asking me where I had travelled to, what was my favourite place and letting me know if I ever wanted to explore south america then he had a whole separate apartment that he kept for his visiting friends and I must come and stay with him!

He was asking me about where I lived as I was trying to enjoy my view when I finally said in my best spanish "I'm sorry, but I really dont want to talk about that, I just want to appreciate where we are and look at this wonderful thing here.... in silence" He took it well and was a lot less chatty for the rest of the walk.

I was very happy that I had taken this trip, although I dissappointed that I would only get to spend 90 minutes there. This is the kind of place, if any, that I can imagine that camping out would be a good thing. Being able to take the time to really soak up the meaning and the history behind this place, and appreciate that I am just a small tiny speck on this planet and my time on this earth is but a mere heart beat in the body of this amazing world that we live in. As it was I contented myself with drinking in as much of what was surrounding me as possible, and taking a few woefully inadequate photographs that would in no way capture the beauty of the place, but go some way to reminding me that I had been there once.

While Orlando popped off to buy an icecream and I dutifully waited for him, I saw something scurrying through the undergrowth. It was a chipmunk and I followed it, feeling something of a wildlife explorer - David Attenborough like, if you will. I whipped out my trusty camera and snapped away, hoping to capture this cute little creature completely in the wild. I managed to get a couple of shots and walked on with Orlando as he slurped happily at his rapidly melting Mr. Softy.

We got to our pick up point much faster than the alleged hour and a half that we were told, I guess the hour and a half allows for photo taking and perhaps folk who have eaten more burgers than really they ought to have done.

Our pick up area was right next to a gift shop and a small restaurant and snack shop. We had 20 minutes till our pick up time, unfortunately not enough time for me to be able to pick up something substatial, so I chose a Pretzel, which I have not had the opportunity to eat yet and seemed to be one more of those traditional american food stuffs that I should try, and a lovely crunchy green apple. I stepped outside, having managed to shake Orlando off as he queued up for yet another ice cream, and I was happily tucking into my apple having set my Pretzel to one side. Anyone who has made this trip to the Grand Canyon will be gasping at my silly rookie error as no sooner had I set my Pretzel down then one of those cheeky chipmonks ran, almost flying, towards me and sank it's teeth into my Pretzel quicker than I could say "so it's not as cute as I thought it was, more like a fluffy rat really".

I ran, shreiking, from the chipmonk, and hurridly threw the remainder of my pretzel in the bin, lest I be accused of feeding the wildlife - signs against which were displayed liberally in the area, and quickly found my bus and boarded to safety.

Everyone was on time, and at 6.15 we headed off for our five our drive back to Las Vegas, stopping at just one of the scheduled rest stops on the way, the driver - in his wisdom - choosing the exact same rest stop that he had taken us to earlier, meaning that it was another 6 inch sub for dinner (I chose a meatball sub this time - it seemed to be quite popular with my group and thought is was another experience that I should try - and again deemed it not really worth it) which we again ate on the hoof. Lucious kept us entertained with a couple of movies as far related to the Grand Canyon as possible and finally, eventually, thankfully we arrived back in Las Vegas.

Orlando insisted on giving me his email address, as he excitedly told me that he had tickets to see the Miss Universe competition the next day, and I promised faithfully to add him on Facebook (NOT!!).

I greatfully left the bus, met up with Spencer who had spent the day in the Library catching up on work, and got in the car for the four and a half hour trip back to Newport.

I tried my best to keep awake, helped along by wonderful bands such as Black Flag and System of a Down, I joined in with the songs occasionally with an "Aaaaaarrrrrrggghhhhh, I'M SO ANGRY AND RUBBISH AT SINGING THAT I AM JUST GOING TO SHOOOOUUUUUUTTTT" and then just removed myself from the whole thing by nodding off (quite literally with my head bobbing about all over the place and snapping back into place when I felt that my neck thought it had reached it's limit. Thankfully I didnt dribble - always a worry). I fought hard to keep myself awake and amused Spencer greatly with my occasional outbursts. I scared myself a couple of times opening my eyes and thinking that we were re-entering Vegas only to realise once my eyes had re-focussed that the lights that I was seeing was actually the back of a large lorry.

We finally arrived home at 4.30 in the morning, I collapsed into bed and woke at 12.30 this afternoon, poor old Spencer had been at work since 7.30!

I'm afraid that I have let you all down, and did not manage to fit a song for Arizona in my little trip to that particular state. I will make it up to you over the next couple of days, when I have to at some point, fit in my song for California.