A mid-winter pre-conference excursion found us in the Arizona desert, atop the Hoover dam and at the southern rim of the Grand Canyon. Having never seen either, I was not sure if these would be 15-minute "seen it" scenics or 15-hour fascinations. The dam is indeed impressively massive and the newly-opened bypass bridge is an equally magnificent engineering marvel. As our new-found biker friends would agree, the two were well worth an hour pause along the way.

The Grand Canyon proved worthy of the near 5-hour drive and had more to offer as a captivating fascination than we could do in two partial days. Even from our tourists' glimpse from atop, every step brought a new angle and every moment brought different lighting - the canyon is so enticingly ever-changing, I wonder if even true wide-angle landscape photographers ever truly capture it. We were warned not to go in "their winter" but went and fortunately the cool temps were refreshing, the snowstorm was no issue for Vermonters, our rim-side Bright Angel cabin was rustically cozy, and we even happened upon a small herd of wild elk in the national forest! What a grand antithesis to the "wilds" of Vegas!