And now the stories can commence. I promise that there will be a few over the next few days. And they'll probably get better and better as my brain clears more and more.

I'll start with the trip from Denver to Albuquerque. I don't know why, but I had allowed R to convince me that we ought to drive between these two cities. The drive is supposed to take between 6 to 8 hours, depending on a variety of factors. You'll get to see what these factors are...

We took off around noon from the Denver International Airport. We were renting a lovely full sized car - an Impala to be precise. And it had a huge boot (trunk), which fit ALL of our luggage, which had grown to include 2 large suitcases, a large duffle, a carryon suitcase, a small backpack and my purse. Impressive, eh?

We began to drive through the plains and mountains of Colorado on Route 25. It's a lovely road to drive on. You pass by all sorts of cities and towns from Colorado Springs (home of radical right and 'family' movement) to Pueblo (aka Home of Heroes) to Trinidad (sex change capital of the US). We wanted to make it to Albuquerque by 8pm, so we just kept driving on...but I did take some lovely pictures! Here's one...



We passed through Raton pass, which is a curvy road through the moutains at the edge of Colorado and New Mexico. It was just after this that we had quite a scare. We were heading toward a storm (not a shock after all the rain which had fallen during our trip)...but it was a different storm. We heard a thump. Then another. And then a large number of sharp thumps. It was hailing. And not that small hail you usually get. The hail was huge - about the same size as a nickle or large marble. It was scary. R. was driving and he did an amazing job. We pulled over as the road got more and more slippery...we couldn't see more than a few feet in front of us. Most people had pulled over as well. And then, ten minutes later, it stopped. Clear skies for as far as we could see. So off we went.

We continued driving until we hit Las Vegas, NM. It's not even close to as fun a place as the one in Nevada. In fact, it was downright blah. But we were very hungry (no lunch after a big breakfast) and needed some petrol. So the town did it's job. R had his first taste of Wendy's. At least it wasn't Burger King!

And then off we went and made it to Albuquerque by around 7:00pm...we made great time. And were we ready to get some sleep!

(here's a link to some pics in Denver...more pics to come: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ukyankee/sets/72157594202020754/)