We’ve left the heat of the Vermillion Canyons behind and as we begin our final approach to our destination periodic bolts of lightning streak downwards to the Arizona desert floor.  This is a storm, a proper one.  Occasional lashes of rain cut through the sand’s blown grit as the wind tosses the Ducati GT1000 around like a leaf.  I shouldn’t be grinning, but this feels like an adventure, and a desert thunderstorm is awesome to behold.  Still it’s nothing compared to what follows.

We arrive in the Grand Canyon, our group, the GT1000 and I, in time for sunset.  Colours fade, shift and manifest as the sun lowers itself below the horizon that holds this great emptiness.  The complexities of the canyon reveal themselves in silhouette, and then fade all together as night encroaches.  We’ve traveled a distance, the GT and I, but now it seems so insignificant compared to a geological wonder that mind and vision can barely comprehend.