I stayed in Santa Fe for the weekend and made a day-excursion to Taos. Originally I wanted to see the Taos Pueblo over there, unfortunally it was closed that day, all I could get was a short glimpse from the parking spot. But there was a trading fair going on at the Hacienda de los Martinez, with mexican food and music, so I went there instead. Santa Fe and Taos are full of art galleries, sculpures and paintings everywhere, and I loved those mexican-style buildings in the downtown area, lots of shops selling navajo jewelry and really really beautiful pottery, couldn't take my eyes off of it !! I'm feeling like I'm running out of time, there is so much to see over here and I've not even 3 weeks left!! I headed to FlAgStAfF bY mOrNiNg, passing along the pAiNtEd dEsRt. Arrived here on monday and I'm still here. The hostel is just one block from the railways, just like home...the only difference is that every train passing through downtown-Flagstaff blows the whistle because of the two railway crossings over here...and there are lots of trains all during night and day!!! Still I like the town, lots of young people over here and some cosy bars in downtown. After seeing 5 towns in 5 days I just relaxed on tuesday and took a stroll around Flagstaff. I took the shuttle to the south rim of the grand canyon on wednesday morning and just hiked along the rim of this huuuge hole the whole day. Enjoyed the view over the red- greyish colored canyon, watching people and mules going down into the canyon on small paths...... the sun started to set down and the shadows in the canyon grew longer and longer while the fading sunlight brought out the purple of the rocks...just amazing...but I had to leave to catch the shuttle back to Flagstaff. Today I made a daytrip to Sedona with a bunch of young people. Sedona reminded me of Moab - red rocks everywhere. We climbed up cathedral rock and back down on the other side of it, that was a pretty TOUGH hike, but it was great just to sit up there , having lunch and enjoying the view. We went to another place called devils bridge, it looked just like an arch, but with the opportunity to stand on top of it. I'm pretty tired right now after that hike, I'll just go to bed to be fit for another trip tomorrow.

Well, I planned to travel to Durango that night, but I still thought about stoping along the road and trying to get to the Arches NP somehow. There was a italian woman on the bus to the salt lake, and it turned out that she'd just arrived in Salt Lake City that day ( and had checked into the room I left just a couple hours ago ) and thought about what to see in Utah...and it didn't take us long to make up our minds to go to see the Arches together....or at last give it a try to get there. We picked up our stuff at the hostel and headed for the bus terminal...and almost missed our bus, as someone had given us the wrong address ( giving directions in salt lake city is like playing " sink the ship" - 600 south300west:nothing...300south600west: bingo-here we go: greyhound bus terminal)....so we were 10 minutes late, but managed to stop the leaving bus and get some tickets at the same time. We arrived in Green River ( the closest place- or let's say truck stop - to the Arches NP you could reach by Greyhound, about 58 miles in the northwest of the NP-entrance ) at 2.45 am, got some hours sleep at a motel and tried to find a way to get to Moab/Aches NP in the morning...and of course there was no way but hitchhiking....a real nice mexican truck driver picked us up and took us to Moab, it was more like sightseeing than hitchhiking...we stoped along the road, all got off the truck, walked over to those magnificent red rocks and took some pics....we made it to Moab and saw the Arches in the afternoon - AWESOME!!!! And what a wonderful, unbelievable day. We went back to Green River the next day and I took the bus to Grand Junction, where I stayed for a night before heading towards Durango, a town about 36 miles in the east of the MESA VERDE NP- entrance, which meant another hitchhike- adventure, but I made it! I didn't even have to pay the entrance fee, as the older couple which had picked me up at the entrance owned a golden age pass. I've seen a lot of cliff dwellings, one-room houses and whole villages like Cliff Palace, Balcony House ( we had to climb a 32 ft. ladder to get up there ) and Spruce Tree House... I'm still wondering how the ancestral puebloans managed to build those places a long time ago. I went on to Albuquerque for a short stopover along the historic Route 66 and to see the old town before heading towards Santa Fe, where I'm right now.

I took the community bus down to West Yellowstone, passing along a beautiful landscape, a river winding through the valley surrounded by mountains, here and there you can see some men fly-fishing, 3 cowboys were riding along a path a little further away.....I arrived in West Yellowstone on Tuesday evening, and since I had to take the bus back on Thursday, I just had 1 day to spend in Yellowstone NP. I took all of Yellowstone in one day- grand loop tour on Wednesday to see as much as I could- and it was just awesome- I can name the places I've been to, but it's hard to describe, you just have to see it !!!! We went to Mammoth Hot Springs ( which reminded me a little of Pammukale/Turkey ), to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone ( lovely color ) and to the Old Faithful and all those geyser basins with hot springs, mudpots and fumaroles. And yes, we saw a lot of wildlife: deer, elk & moose, an osprey in the canyon, grizzly & black bears and dozens of BUFFALLOS! Just to see them standing further away in the prairie,with all the steam of the fumaroles in the background made a great picture, but some of them stood right next to the road, one even walked along the road, another one just sat there, facing the crowd....well, I had to leave, heading back to Bozeman and going on to Salt Lake City on Thursday evening...arriving on a coooold morning in the city of mormons. It just felt like fall finally found me, so I knew that I wouldn't stay very long over there before heading back south to chase the summer. Went to see Temple Square with the temple and the tabernacle ( I love this word!!! ), unfortunally you couldn't go inside as they are rebuilding the Tabernacle and you would have to " prepare " yourself to be allowed to enter the temple. I listened to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on sunday morning and headed for one last time towards the Temple Square to kill some time ( and that was really easy because of all those mormon-sisters who longed to talk to me ) before I took a tour to the great salt lake and the huge copper mine ( it looks like the pyramids upside down ) in the afternoon. I planned to leave in the evening - heading straight towards Durango....when something else came up, but this story will have to wait till I write my next post.

Arriving in Chicago on a rainy monday morning, my first impression of the city was: "cold and expensive"- but I guess I just felt that way because I came up from the south. I left Chicago on a lovely warm thursday evening in the middle of a blues session of the "Great Performers of Illinois" at Millenium Park - with a big full moon in the sky and surrounded by all those buildings in downtown that became familiar during the past few days. In between those days I went to see the Sears-Tower and several museum when there was free entrance in the afternoon ( I really can't count all the waterlillies painted by Monet I've seen so far-he must have spend half of his life on painting waterlillies!! ) , got up to the John Hancock observatory to see Chicago at night, did some shopping at the "Magnificent Mile"/ Michigan Ave ( Fortunally one of my trousers gave way after the 20h- busride, so I had a good excuse for doing shopping! ), met up with Arlan, went to the Millenium Park over and over again to listen to music during the day...and not to forget about that funny puppet theater I've seen on Michigan Ave - cutest thing you've ever seen ( I even took some videos and put them on youtube.com) !!!!!!
I left Chicago for Rapid City. It didn't took me longer to get there then it took me from Dallas to Chicago, but traveling through South Dakota with nothing but prairie on both sides of the road for hours and hours made me finally realise how large this country is. I stayed in Rapid City for 2 nights to see Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, the Custer State Park ( Saw a buffallo!!), and the Black Hill National Forest. Guess what I saw in a park in Rapid City......2 pieces of the berlin wall - I guess if somebody ever decides to rebuild that wall it would'nt be that difficult, because 90 percent of it seem to be somewhere in canada and the u.s.. I went on to Bozeman/Montana on sunday evening and got here at 4 am the next morning- it was so cold that I could hardly get my jacket out of the backpack because I couldn't stop my hands from shaking. This is the closest I could get to the Yellowstone NP with public transportation - there's no public transportation from Bozeman to West Yellowstone, but there is a community bus going there twice a week- originally established for disabled people, but without a car I would almost consider myself as disabled over here. So I called the police station in West Yellowstone to make a reservation on the bus, unfortunally they told me that I have to wait till thursday, because the bus is full on tuesday, but I just called the busdriver and he told me that there's a seat for me today so I'm heading for West Yellowstone in the afternoon, in about 3 hours!!! Sometimes I still wonder how everything always works out so well!!! ( Dan, if you want to take the bus aswell, call the police station (406) 646 7600 to make a reservation or the busdriver ( 406) 640 1511 to pick you up- the bus leaves West Yellowstone somewhen in the morning and leaves Bozeman at 3 pm to head back to West Yellowstone - it's 10 bucks /one way )

I left Austin ( and all the bars&clubs with live music on 6 th street ) on tuesday and headed for Dallas. I stayed at a place called Irving right in between Dallas and Forth Worth for the rest of the week, because I just felt that I should'nt leave Texas without having seen a rodeo. I went to Forth Worth to see the Stockyards. Once an important stop on the Chisholm Trail (an old cattle-driving route) , this place keeps the western heritage alive with daily longhorn cattle drives, an old rail station, lot's of saloons and an old barn turned into a big honky tonk. I also went to Dallas to see Downtown and the 6th Floor Museum. Finally, friday came up and I headed for Mesquite, a suburb in the east of Dallas, to see the rodeo and it was really worth all the difficulties to get there ( and back) , althrough I can't understand why they let 4 year old children ride on sheeps going wild to entertain the crowd. I went to see another rodeo this afternoon in Fort Worth - the Cowboys of Colors Rodeo - and now I'm ready to leave for Chicago tomorrow.