Moving on, we drove a couple of hours north to Page. On our first trip, we had planned to visit the Grand Canyon and Page but when we rescheduled, we missed these places off with the canyon being closed and went further south to Phoenix and Sedona.
We passed the Vermillion Cliffs and what looked like smoke signals – maybe the Page Pow Wow – oops no it was the power plant!
We’ve rebooked the same tours and first went on Ken’s Antelope Canyon tour.
Chris went on the photographers tour, in a small group, taking tripods and I went on a general tour. Antelope Camyon is a slot canyon which has to be seen to be believed, formed by erosion from flash floods which bring water and sand rushing through its passages. You cannot see it easily above ground and once inside, it is narrow and twists and turns – imagine being inside a seashell. Even in a group, with youngsters shrieking and taking selfies and parents trying to keep young children under control it was quite magical. The light and the colours and the angles are fabulous for photos, and since a picture was published in National Geographic in the 1990s, this place is firmly on the map. Certainly a highlight of the trip and Chris can’t wait to get some of his photos home to Lightroom, but I’m quite pleased with my Studies in Pink too.
Here was the exit and a stray dinosaur print too.
When we started looking for our motel, we were amused to see signs for the Old Quarter, as Page only came into existence in 1957 with the building of the Glen Canyon dam. The street of Little Motels has preserved the original construction workers units and converted them to motels.
We chose Red Rock Motel, where Brady and Pamela made us feel very welcome.
A visit to Sunshine Laundry provided some clean clothes and we ended the day with fajitas and burritos In the very cute El Tapatio, easily swayed by a margarita and a mariachi!
Today we are rafting the Colorado through Glen Canyon, a tour we booked last time to coincide with our tradition of celebrating our wedding anniversary on the water somehow. This trip, we are here a week early, but we are doing it anyway! We started with a bus ride through the 2 mile access tunnel cut into the side of the canyon, containing windows cut to jettison the waste rubble from the tunnel. We then put on hard hats to walk under the road bridge 700ft above, just in case someone threw something out the car window … which could prove painful! Then we boarded our raft, leaving the dam behind and floated down the Colorado while we wondered at the canyon walls soaring 1000ft above us, with Martin pointing out anything of interest.
We went round Horseshoe Bend, and yelled Hello at the visitors photographing the bend from above and heard an echo, then took a snap of the ‘hill’ that forms the centre of the bend (if this sounds confusing, check out the photo from the viewpoint later on).
Then we motored back, stopping at a small beach for a rest stop, where we saw Rocky sunning himself, and some animals grazing and had a very quick paddle as the water was only 8 deg C.
The day was a bit grey which didn’t help the photos, but our guide Martin was full of information and jokes and made the trip especially enjoyable, happy to point out the waterfall … aka seepage … aka LEAK and also the bolts holding the dam together!
Afterwards, we visited the the Glen Dam viewpoint to get a different perspective …
Before leaving Page behind, we stopped at a couple more viewpoints … one with a bird’s eye view of Horseshoe Bend, where I had a lovely chat with Christina from Texas while waiting for the light to get better …
… and the other at Wahweap Marina with views of the huge Lake Powell.
Now we we go north again, this time to the promised land …!
Off Travelling Together 