Mad Dogs, Englishmen, Shit From pretty Flagstaff we headed up into the mountains to ven more beautiful Sonoma A pretty if rather touristy little town nestled into some of the most stunning mountain scenery I have ever seen. The red mountains of Sonoma (stained by iron ores) rise up in steep weathered peaks all around the town, which itself sits in a green and leafy valley bottom with a river in it. The Grand Canyon is spectacular, but the views from here are almost too beautiful to describe. We found a really nice room for 20 quid ! 9as long as we went to the time share expo the next day), plus wegot 50 dollars in meal voushers and a free pass to the festival of Christmas lights, we didn't buy a timehsare so we've had a really good deal here. In the middle of the afternoon, with the temperature in the mid 70's, I went for a hike, I passed a number of signs displaying pictures of the local wildlife, tortoises - good, little pig things - good, snakes - not so good, scorpions - not very good at all, mountain lions - bloody hell, really ? Anyway, off I set, I crossed the river by means of a fallen tree and wandered off into counryside that rapidly became dense, spiky, almost impenetrable scrub, then I found a bit of a trail, and then I saw it, the turd. Now I'm not usually frightened of shit, you tend to see a lot of shit when you're outhiking, cows, rabbits, sheep, all produce copious amouts of shit and distribute it liberally across the landscape. /this though, it was large, more like that of a large dog, or more worryingly, very large cat, it had lots of fur in it, and little bones. Pretty much like the spoor of something that killed small furry things for dinner. I turned for home, back to the river, ducks arn't all that dangerous.