What day is it?

Friday?  Saturday? We often have to look at our phones to find out. It's the mileage done, number of days left and how much mileage we still want to do which are important. It's nearly October, that much we know, and tomorrow (or the next day) we'll be at the Pacific. It seems like only last week we were in the New Mexico desert!  Every so often it all gets a bit much and we feel the need to be still. Today was such a day No travelling, no sightseeing, just curling our toes in soft green grass and watching the river flow past. No restaurants or bars, juts roasting marshmallows over an open fire and baking apples in the embers while we gaze into the flames trying to let our hearts and minds absorb it all.  New Mexico was a thousand photographs ago.

September has been probably the most intense period of the whole trip. We've covered over 3000 miles, visited 9 states and crossed 3 timezones. But it's the places we've seen and the change of season that were intense. We've been below ground to see the amazing caves and formations of Carlsbad Caverns...

...and stayed until dusk to see the bats take flight. We've stood in the wagon ruts on the Santa Fe trail and heard the whispers of a thousand ghosts on the the wind at Fort Union

We've ridden a steam train on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railway at Chama and imagined we were back in the Wild West

We've climbed Chimney Rock with a reincarnated Shaman, on a path surely intended for goats...

...and been barely able to breathe at the end because of the altitude. At Mesa Verde we were transported back in time 1000 years to walk in the steps of the ancient Puebloan Indians, among their amazing multistory cliff dwellings.

 An unplanned detour to Arizona and Utah took us through Monument Valley and Arches National Park. Dwarfed by massive natural structures, the shapes and colours of the rock formations had us on another world.

Another little detour in Colorado led us to the Black Canyon of the Gunneson. Deep, dark and mysterious. Had we younger legs we might have ventured down those granite cliffs but contented ourselves with hiking the rim. High enough?

But Yellowstone...land of many colours. Caught between late summer and autumn. Where the days were warm and the nights dropped below freezing. No picture can do it justice.

 At all of these parks visitors are extolled to "Take only pictures and leave only footprints".  Pictures?  We have taken away hundreds but we have also taken away a renewed sense of wonder for this amazing planet we call home. Footprints? Thousands in  mud, sand, ash, dirt and grass. But in the case of Yellowstone we have perhaps left something more - a little piece of our hearts.