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Our separate love affairs with the States began before we met. I went there on business in 1965 and my wife had a holiday there in 1967, the year before we married. We agreed that the USA is a most exciting country to visit and has so many places we would like to see, especially its natural features. We have been there together several times since and have started to talk about planning to visit all the 50 states - although not to the exclusion of other overseas trips!

Our son inadvertently encouraged our venture by getting engaged to a girl from New Mexico. We flew out to New York in April 1999, where they are both working, to meet her parents and hear about the plans for the wedding. This took place in Albuquerque in September 1999 and we and four other members of our family and a friend travelled there for the occasion. My wife and I decided to spend three weeks touring a part of USA we had not seen before and our daughter-in-law-to-be suggested a route through Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. The last two states we had visited on a previous occasion but had not been to the places on this itinerary.

These four states are the only ones which all come together in one place, appropriately known as the Four Corners. It is possible to place both feet in positions in which the toes and heels cover all the four states simultaneously. We started our tour by flying direct to Denver, Colorado and renting a car. We arrived in a thunderstorm and torrential rain soaked us merely crossing the road from the terminal to the bus taking us to the car. We drove to Boulder and took a room in a motel. We subsequently signed up with a motel chain to get a VIP card, which entitled us to 10% discount. We also found it very convenient that they had a central number through which we could make a reservation at any of their motels.

The next day, we drove through Rocky Mountain National Park, which has some spectacular scenery and a road which goes over a pass at 12,000 ft. I had been uncertain about the wisdom of my going up to this height as I fainted in the Canadian Rockies a few years ago at about 8,000 ft. The reason has never been discovered and I have always wondered whether altitude might have been responsible. However, apart from being a little breathless at high altitudes on many occasions during this trip, I remained quite fit. The Continental Divide also goes through the park, and we were to cross and recross it several times during the next three weeks

We spent the night at Dillon and drove the next day via a ghost mining town - of which there are many in the south-west states - to Durango. We drove through another torrential downpour, which made it impossible to see anything apart from the tail lights of the car in front. We dared not lose sight of them! The next morning we took the steam train up the Animas River Gorge to Silverton. This is a wonderfully scenic ride, the track often hugging the confined space between the river and the gorge walls with views down to and along the tumbling river. It was very photogenic and passengers spent much of the time with their heads out of the windows, getting grimy in the process.

Next day we went to Mesa Verde National Park and toured the Cliff Palace, a well-preserved pueblo or dwelling place of Anasasi Indians. We marvelled at how they managed to construct such buildings on a cliff ledge and how they got to and from the "palace" with their food and water. There were hand and toeholds cut into the cliff face showing that climbing was a normal means of access. Ladders were also used.

They must have paid a high price in inconvenience for the strong defence against enemies which the site provided. As soon as we had finished our tour the rain came down again so we saw other ancient sites in the park from under our umbrellas. We drove on to the Four Corners and did the traditional straddle of the four states.

We crossed over into New Mexico and went to visit Chaco Canyon. This was down a 20-mile dirt road, which is stated to be impassable in wet weather. The recent rain had made it very boggy and at one stage we thought we might not get through, but we did - just. The canyon was full of beautifully crafted Anasasi stone buildings, built with superb precision and finish. The kivas were of great interest. These were round, about 20ft in diameter, and sunk about 10 ft into the ground. They were originally covered and were entered down a ladder through the roof. They were used for meetings and religious ceremonies and every pueblo had several of them. The sky started to get black and mindful of the 20 miles of dirt road we had to retrace, we beat a hasty retreat.

We arrived in Albuquerque and met our son and his fiancee, and with the other members of our family who had flown out for the wedding. The next day we went out in a large to visit an old pueblo which had been influenced by the Spanish invasion of the south west - they built a Catholic church in 1629 - but was still lived in. The houses were of adobe construction with wooden beams protruding from the walls. The cemetery had five layers of occupants, to be near the church and to save space. In the evening there was a rehearsal for the wedding, designed to ensure that everyone knew their part and all would go smoothly.

The wedding day brought brilliant sunshine, the first totally dry day since we arrived in USA a week before. A wedding breakfast was held in a hall at the church an hour before the ceremony so that everyone involved, with the exception of the bride, could meet and mingle. This was very helpful to the seven UK visitors who were outnumbered about 10 to 1 by the local guests. The bride and groom had produced a booklet containing the order of service, a synopsis of their backgrounds and photos of them as children. This was well received by the guests and we all took copies home as a memento.

At the reception which followed, the bride provided a number of simple "point and shoot" cameras for the guests to take. The results have since been published on the internet so that all the guests can see the pictures without having to wait for films to be processed and photo albums passed round. For those interested the web site is www.gambier.freeservers.com

In the evening, my wife and I hosted a dinner party at a restaurant on top of Sandia Peak, a 10,300 ft mountain overlooking Albuquerque, reached by cable car. The fine weather continued a lovely sunset, followed by the twinkling lights of the town.

With the wedding successfully completed we resumed our travels by driving south to White Sands. This is an enormous area of gypsum dunes, which does not allow anything to grow in it but does allow plants already rooted in the ground to continue growing up to ride above the shifting dunes. The first atomic bomb was detonated at White Sands over 50 years ago. Then on to Carlsbad Caverns, which are huge limestone caves, which go down 800ft below ground. There is a winding path down into the caves, which are lit with subdued light to retain the impression of darkness which would exist in their natural state. The stalactite and stalagmite formations are larger and more varied and abundant than I have seen in many other caves elsewhere the world. In three hours of walking in the caves, we did not see them all.

We continued across the state border to Texas where we stopped at El Paso. We walked across the Bridge of the Americas to set foot in Mexico. Nobody asked us any questions and I spoke to a US border guard to ask what would prevent a Mexican from walking across. He said "Me".

The next day we drove into Arizona and went to the Chiricahua State Park where amazing formations of volcanic rocks, (rather like the Giant's Causeway in land but taller and over a wider area), could be seen from a high viewpoint. Then on to the Saguaro National Park near Tucson, where a large variety of cactus plants thrive, in particular the saguaro, the tall cactus which grows arms after 75-or-so years. Many of the plants are at least 200 years old.

Our next port of call promised to be one of the highlights of the holiday. We had specially booked to stay in the Thunderbird Lodge at Chinle, so that we could take a tour of Canyon de Chelly. This is a particularly beautiful canyon owned by the Navajo Indians, who still live there and grow crops in the rich soil at the bottom. They run 6-wheel-drive buses, which take 24 tourists a time along the canyon (and charge well for the privilege). There are two arms of the canyon, each over 20 miles long and up to 700ft deep.

It should have been a wonderful experience - except it started to rain and we all had to don ponchos supplied by the driver. The rain blew into our faces and it was hard to see where we were going, let alone appreciate the beauty of the canyon. The rain did slow up later but it was damp and grey all afternoon. I took off my poncho and immediately got cold. COLD, in Arizona in early September! The following morning the sun came out and we drove the length of the two rims of the canyon looking down on where we had been the previous day. It was strikingly beautiful and made up for the disappointment of the unseasonal afternoon.

We then drove into Utah and went through the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert. The Petrified Forest was very impressive though the "forest" consists of many stone trees lying on the ground broken into many pieces. The authorities in the park say that there is a serious loss amounting to 12 tons a year, by people taking a memento, as the pieces of rock are so easy to put in the pocket. The Painted Desert was less impressive and we have seen better examples of coloured sand elsewhere. We spent the afternoon in Arches National Park which we thoroughly enjoyed because there was a good deal of walking needed to see the arches and this was welcome after so much driving.

The next day we drove from Moab where we were staying to the lower part of Canyonlands National Park - the Needles. This involved a journey of some 70 miles; although the park runs roughly parallel to the road we were on, it is some distance to the west and there are only two entrances, from the north and from the south, and the two roads do not connect. The drive from the main road into the park was spectacular, running through a canyon with high walls on each side. The Needles section of the park was less impressive and there was hardly any view of the canyons, formed by the erosive action of the Colorado River and Green River at their joining point.

The next day we drove about 40 miles into the north section of Canyonlands - Island in the Sky - and felt instantly rewarded for the time and effort we had spent going to this National Park. The views of the canyons were staggeringly beautiful. It was like the Grand Canyon on a smaller scale. We looked down about 700 ft to see further canyons cut into the bedrock in almost random fashion, and the area within our view must have been hundreds of square miles. Again we had to walk to see the best views and we were particularly rewarded by a short walk to a natural arch, 15ft high and 40ft long, through which we could see the canyon. As this was our last full day on tour, it was a fitting end.

Next day we had to drive over 300 miles from Moab to Denver. This should have been a splendid drive, especially the first part along the Colorado River canyon. However, it rained, so our plan to take it easy and stop for pictures at every opportunity was dashed. We did stop for relief and refreshment but the weather was not our friend that day. In fact the locals told us in all the four states that the weather this summer has been unusually wet. People were very keen to talk to us and were delighted to hear that we so much enjoyed visiting the States.

On the morning of the day we flew home, we went to the Capitol building in Denver and were pleased and surprised to find that it opens to the public from 7am; there is not an entrance fee and we had total freedom to walk around the building. The view from the top of the dome is wonderful and gives a good impression of the size - in area - of the Colorado state capital. Afterwards we visited the Colorado History Museum and spent a fascinating hour looking at how the state and the city had grown up over the past 150 years.

We handed the car back having clocked up more than 4,000 miles in 19 days. We flew home by British Airways, the only direct flight to and from Denver, to face all the usual facts of post-travel life - jet lag, mountains of washing, piles of mail and knee-high lawns.

First published in VISA issue 36 (spring 2000)