A word about this photo.

First, thanks to Craig Thornly was has set up this blog and managed it from afar making sure it stayed up and adding to it through the past days. We had talked about doing a blog well before Emily's call came but had not yet set it up. I tried to send out a couple of group  e-mails while she was still in surgery but his did not work. I called Craig sometime after midnight and he added my mails to a couple of Emily's mails, used her list to notify folks about the blog and launched it. Response was instantaneous and moving. All of your words of support and encouragement have meant  so very much to us all. We read many to Emily while she was still heavily under the influence of the pain meds and now she is working her way through the backlog.

So, the photo at the top of the blog. This is Red Wall Cavern in the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River. It is about thirty four miles from the launching point, at Lee's Ferry, for a rafting trip. By the time you get to this point you have been on the river for several days and are settling into a comfortable rhythm of camping and being on the water. You have also passed through some very big rapids but here the is river flat, you row quietly taking in the canyon which is now very deep with the walls going right up from the rivers edge. It is humbling and awesome and a privilege to be there and see this huge cave. The only way to get there is by the river. The scale of things, distance and size, is all out of whack in the canyon. It is so vast. You start feeling pretty small. When you first see the cavern you are a long ways upstream and it takes  many minutes to float down near it. Look at the photo and take a guess at how many people could fit inside. Someone said as many as five thousand, I don't know but it is huge. Look very carefully at the water line,in the rocks, at the right end of the sandy beach. There is at least one raft, 18' long, and some people there. The time it takes to float up to the cavern is very peaceful, a good time to be thoughtful and ponder about things. This is a very special place and if you have been there you are in a pretty select crowd. Emily has been there twice. Most recently in October of 07 when we spent 21 days on the river after waiting 16 years to get our permit. It was worth the wait. Many thought we were crazy to do this as Emily's health had become fragile. But she wanted to go and has always been a risk taker. Her attitude has always been to go for it. Now I am pretty sure she is already plotting another trip down there, with new lungs. Something to anticipate during the months ahead of recovery. 

Craig picked this picture from his files, he was down there about a year ago. It was a fine choice  a lovely image of a sublime spot. Very beautiful, a bit mysterious. Look at your screen and tilt the top back and forth, the lighting will change, as if you are there at different times of the day. I heard that someone on first viewing the blog, not knowing what they were seeing, asked is that the new lungs?

KM