Monday photo feature

Not that the picture does it justice or anything, but I had a pleasant trip across the Painted Desert in northeastern Arizona this morning.

I am now in Flagstaff, the staging area for my Grand Canyon trip.  The other thirteen members of my party are trickling into town.  Tomorrow morning we'll go to the property of our outfitter who's providing our rafts and other equipment, and we'll ride the outfitter's bus to the putin at Lee's Ferry, where we'll spend the day rigging the rafts and meeting with the National Park Service ranger and stuff like that.  We'll camp at Lee's Ferry and, on the 27th of August, our official Launch Day, we will launch.

This is probably the last post you'll see here until after the trip concludes on September 11.  We'll have a satellite phone for emergencies, but otherwise I plan to be off the grid for sixteen days.  And I'm hopeful that'll be a good thing.  Putting this trip together has been kind of a stressful process, and I'm ready for the planning to end and the actual adventure to begin.  Meanwhile, I think it's becoming better and better documented that the Internet and social media and everything are not the greatest asset to one's mental health--never has it been more difficult to "get away from it all."  But for two and a half weeks I hope to be away from it all, with no regrets.

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