Until now we've managed, through pure fluke I must add, to just about squeeze through various closing "Corona Virus" doors but now our luck has run out. Arizona is more or less in a state of lock down and the various national parks we had planned to visit here and up into Utah have shut up shop temporarily. So this has shifted our focus from making miles, to killing time. Although it felt strange at first, it's not something we are going to complain about! We're now waiting for our luck to return regarding our planned visit in the USA and also that the border with Mexico will be opening up once more in a couple of months' time, when we'll be kicked out of the land of the free as our visa waiver time is up.

Not much to report from a day of small tasks to prepare for a few nights in the woods: buying food, filling up the water tank and picking up our final parcel from Mark at the Highlander. This was a clamp for my bike so that I could replace the manky old gear changers with some old school levers attached to the frame, which I am loving! We then set out into said woods to find a campsite near the start of a footpath to Hell Canyon, which we had planned to hike to the next day. This started on a relatively well transited but small road that we eventually turned off to join one the many dirt track, forest service roads where we'd be totally isolated from mankind for the next couple of days.

About half an hour down this track, now feeling many miles from home and waving goodbye to our comfort zone, we steadily got used to navigating the ruts, puddles and fallen branches. This allowed us to start observing our surroundings. Starting with the ground, which it seemed was simply made for preserving animal tracks. Now, we're no experts but there were all sorts. What looked like deer, small mammals and... oh what's this one? Looks dangerously like a bloody bear's footprint! And from then on, I'm sure driven by our wildly running imaginations, every other print looked like a big, hairy, scary bear's... This was totally overwhelming Ruth's thought process and suddenly she shouts to me "There's a bear running towards us!!!" which, I can tell you, sent the heeby jeebies right up me. Turned out it was a herd of deer prancing through the woods nearby, and thank goodness... We eventually set up camp and got a campfire roaring away to stave off the cold evening air then drifted off into bear filled dreams.

We awoke to the wonderful sounds of wildlife rumbling through the surrounding forest and the delightful knowledge that we had a day of doing just as we pleased. After a lazy morning we headed off down a valley, which our Warm Showers host Dave had mentioned, that led to the scary sounding "Hell Canyon". It was a couple of hour hike along a small river with nothing really in the way of a path. What felt like totally undisturbed woodland punctuated by fallen trees, animal tracks and only a single piece of litter floating down the stream, which we of course picked up to bring back that pristine feeling. The valley gradually steepened as promised into what was worthy of the term "canyon" (even if not quite the Grand Canyon we had originally planned to be visiting at this point!). I think I've never been in a wood that felt quite so woody in my life... With mixed emotions surrounding the lack of further large wildlife spotting (not that we were eager to bump into any cuddly bears but the odd dear would have been nice), we headed back to camp to look up advice on camping out in bear country and enjoyed another blazing campfire during the evening.

Our wake up call this morning was the cackling coyotes that were whooping around during the early hours. The night was full of much stranger noises compared to the previous one and this had taken its toll on Ruth who had not managed to get much shut eye. We had been checking out the weather and knew that today was going to get very cold, rain, snow and hail, therefore we had always planned to head back to the Motel in Williams for a couple of days till the unsettled weather passed. And that's just what we did! So once more we returned, started to savour those indoor comforts and catch up with the staff. It was lovely to settle in for the night hearing the howling gales and heavy rain pounding the structure of the little Motel as we hid away deep inside.

The weather promised to hold onto its anger for a further day, so we promised ourselves that we'd stay indoors! Another good opportunity to try and get up to date with the lingering task of getting up to date with our audiolog, which we'd been doing the odd recoding for throughout the week. So a few beers into the afternoon we got down with the laptop and turned the room into an echoey recoding studio (we found the tent is actually much better for this sort of thing!). I can report progress and good times were had, I'll leave the rest for the audio when it eventually premiers... I spent a bit of time working on the website preparing a page for the audio to available on (work in progress still) and a few bits and bobs. Without a shadow of a doubt the most useful of which is our new statistic on the progress page of average showers we take per day!

Now we had prepared a lot of food and water knowing we were to be in the sticks for a good few days, so packing up the bikes as they creaked and moaned under the strain was sobering in the knowledge that a nice steep hill greeted us on road out of Williams. We were now old hands as we'd been up and down it a couple of times already. We said our goodbyes to Mark and Sally who worked the Motel, handing over some mistakenly purchased baking soda (advice in the Corona virus lock down is to think carefully about what you buy beforehand as not even with a neatly folded receipt and a friendly smile are you able to return anything, or enter the shop with it as it turns out...). Our aim for the day was down in a valley to the south of Williams, the promised land where the climes are warmer, the people are fewer and the hiking is endless. So after the initial hulk up the hill out of town it was downhill all the way, some vertical 800m or so to the bottom of the valley! And so we found a spot to hold up for a while about half way down. The woods by that point had gone from endless pine to smaller, more desert friendly flora indicating to us at least that the cold times were behind us and the warmer times were ahead! We made another roaring campfire to start our Easter weekend while I taught Ruth a think or two about how to play chess ;).

As I eluded to in the introduction, we were now in time burning mode and I am sorry to say that it does not make great reading! Now committed to the countryside for a few days our objective was to wait with our radio, boardgames (shout out to team LAC for the Bananagrams! It's coming into its own), food supplies, books and hiking boots! I love to laze around a natural campsite but I'm sure in a couple of weeks' time I'll be longing for some end to the tedium... At least we have no excuse not to finish the push for the podcast :). One thing that amazed us what the variety of cacti to be found just a few yards from where we'd chosen to pitch the tent, just had to be careful where we sat!

The promise for the day was downhill all the way, something which sounded amazing, however we knew the road was to turn to dirt track after not so long and we have a bit of a history now with struggling down off-road tracks. Turned out even the road was bumpy, so things only got bumpier once we hit the mud, rattling out teeth out. And to make matters worse it was a showery day and in the early afternoon, thankfully just in time for lunch, we got caught out and had to put up the tent for half an hour. I wasn't feeling great this day so Ruth had to handle my grumpy wrath as we struggled to get the thing pitched in the winds, thank goodness for Ruth... We banged, bumped and slid our merry way down the side of the valley, down to a river in a small place called Perkinsville where there were signs of life... After an afternoon's rest we were left contemplating a night between a river prone to flash flooding, the notices posted around were no lie as tell tale signs were all around, and an angry bull that some kids had antagonised just before leaving. Kindly informing us from the back of their parents pick up truck as it was driving away to "Watch out tonight for the bull!". Thanks guys...