Wonders of the American West

Day Five – 2 June 2011

Monument Valley – Lake Powell

Weather: 31, sunny

Well, I did managed to get up in time to catch the sunrise over the Monuments.

Sweet. It really brightened up the red in the hills next to the hotel.

Breakfast was pretty good – the usual fare – but the eggs tasted funny. We ate at the window with the Monuments in view.

Sweet.

As we left breakfast, Gordon came up to us looking worried and asked if we had seen Anson. We said no. He walked off, checking every corner.

Not so sweet.

Apparently, he slept in, but we forgave him. He had to be the sweetest driver I’d ever had. He interacted with everyone on the tour and had a great sense of humour.

I took a walk around the hotel looking to add to the three hundred other photos I had of the Monuments and surrounding buttes.

And got a nice shot of the hotel.

Nice spot.

I returned to my room to put out my luggage and found both the bus and Anson waiting. We pulled out right on time.

As we left the parking lot, we saw some of the local tours that go down to the valley floor. In the back of the smaller 4WD trucks were a group of Japanese – all wearing face masks, white gloves and all had plastic bags over their cameras.

One of the trucks was called Blackwater Tours. Gordon reminded us that Blackwater used to be a contractor used in Iraq that ran into trouble.

Now, he said with a smile, they run Monument Valley Tours. You go out but there was no guarantee you’ll come back.

Our first stop was the famous highway running into the valley. You know it as the spot where Forrest Gump stopped running. We got out to take pictures, keeping an eye out for cars coming over the crest at warp speed.

I snapped a quick pic and got back to the shoulder. So did Gordon. His stress level was obvious, though I don’t think he could get any greyer.

There was a white mustang convertible across the road with two Belgian men wearing USA t-shirts trying to get a picture of each other. Gordon helped them out. When he got back on the bus, he noted that the mustang was a rental.

I wondered if they would have to pay to get the red dust off the white leather seats.

And yes, Forrest Gump did stop at mile marker thirteen north of Monument Valley, not Moab as some tried to claim. We had been trying to get through the movie for two days, and as we drove north, we finally got to the part when he stopped running. No doubt about it. It was Monument Valley.

Our next stop was the Mexican Hat Rock. It was a balanced rock that looks like a sombrero.

Andrew really had outdone himself.

The funny part about this photo was that it looked like a double exposure because the canyons in the background didn’t look right, but I looked at all the photos and this is exactly as it was.

This is the same pic without zooming in.

Since it was not a long drive to Lake Powell, we got a lot of photo stops. The next one was the Navajo Twins in Bluff, Utah – a pair of pinnacles right above a Trading Post and Gift Shop, with piles of rockfall just behind the buildings.

Yeah, they were very trusting in Andrew’s handiwork.

We checked out the Trading Post and Gift Shop while everyone made a bathroom run and I picked up a t-shirt. The pit stops seemed to be more important on this tour since we drank so much water.

As I headed for the bus, a woman had just boarded the bus and her husband was chasing her inside saying there was a bug on her shirt. She freaked a little but Anson trapped it in his hands and rushed down the aisle to let it go outside. The insect (a moth of some sort) flew out, hit the bus window a couple times and then a bird swooped in and grabbed it for lunch.

Anson was crushed!

As we pulled out, the same white mustang was parked across the street and the two Belgians were checking out an old rusted out pick-up. We honked and waved.

We made the short drive to Blanding for lunch. The drive was leisurely because we had until three to catch the ferry from Hall’s Crossing to Bullfrog Marina on Lake Powell. Gordon gave us an hour for the early lunch and we went for the one obvious place on the street – A&W. After a way-too-much-for-lunch lunch, we strolled outside only to see two girls on horses going through the drive-thru.

Well, you want to see thirty-two tourists rush out to take pictures. The girls waited for their order at the window and Gordon checked with them to make sure it was okay to take pictures and they said yes.

So, I took some video of them getting their order and trotting away.

And pics of the A&W clean up service.

A few minutes later, they came up to us as we waited by the bus and asked if we would email the pictures to them. We took their email address and then they put on a little show for us. The horses were named Buttercup and Rain. The girls were nineteen and at least one of them was off to college in August.

It’s stuff like this that really makes these trips worthwhile.

We were off by noon and found ourselves behind a line of RVs, so the going was slow.

But their speed was not the real concern. Gordon was afraid that they’re going to the same ferry as well and the one at three was the last one for the day. He said the trip around the lake was a very very long drive.

Hey, I can swim.

We drove through two steep rock faces, and on the other side was a great view of Comb Ridge and the cut in the rock cliffs behind us. We stepped out for a photo stop and nearly gave Gordon a coronary when we stepped into the middle of the road to take a picture.

The running engine of the coach was echoing in between the rock faces so he thought he heard a car coming around the blind corner.

When we got back on the coach, Gordon noted that the cops don’t like buses stopping there but that there weren’t many police in the area.

Not many people either.

He thinks they’re more concerned with part of the rock face coming down on top of us hapless tourists.

The RVs were nowhere in sight as we carried on and made a quick stop at Mule Canyon where there was another kiva and other ruins. We got out and walked to the trail for the very short walk to the ruins and the short walk back. Some made a bathroom stop and some took pics.

Then we carried on towards Hall’s Crossing through an area with cliffs off to the right called Red House Cliffs – which were part of the Glen Canyon National Recreational Area.

All along this road were signs warning of free range cattle. And they liked to stand in the middle of the road and stare at you.

Someone had mentioned something about steak for dinner.

The driver slowed as we passed a brown cow with two black calves on the road. One calf was feeding until we approached. It took off and the cow just stared at us.

We pulled over for another photo op farther down the cliffs but I think we took more pics of the three cows standing at the other end of the viewpoint.

Yes. I went to America to take pictures of staring cows.

Lake Powell is the second largest man made lake in the US after Lake Mead. It was the site of a lot of movies like the Back to the Future series – which Gordon tried to see in a local theatre at the time. He said that during the entire film people were shouting out “there I am,” “there’s Bob,” “there’s my uncle!”

We pulled into the Lake Powell ticket booth with a half hour to spare so Gordon gave us ten minutes to go to the bathroom. I didn’t need to go, but the line to the single female bathroom was so long, I had to take a pic.

You think they were done in ten minutes?

Ha.

Then Gordon saw a tractor trailer pull up to the ticket booth and he herded everyone back on the bus quickly – cutting the break short – but the tractor trailer finished at the booth before we could pull out. Since there were only two places to go after the booth – the ferry or the marina – he was afraid it was going to the ferry and would get there first, leaving no room for us.

So we followed the tractor trailer, right past the ferry and all the way down to the marina.

Oops.

Gordon realized we turned down the wrong exit and we had to make a three point turn to get back to the road and down to the ferry. Gordon called ahead to make sure they’d wait for us as we were down to eight minutes.

Yeah. Like I said. Gordon was already grey. He couldn’t get any greyer.

We pulled down a very very steep loading slope which I imagine allowed them to load cars at any level of the lake. With the drought, the level had been low as they still had to release water to keep the Colorado flowing.

We boarded the ferry and took the twenty minute ride across the lake. The scenery was beautiful with bare smooth rock rising up from the lake. There were a fleet of house boats and a floating marina as well as a few speed and jet boats around.

On arrival, Gordon dropped us off at the visitor’s centre for a short talk on dinosaurs while he and Anson went to the hotel to arrange everything and drop off our luggage.

The park ranger gave an interesting spiel on the presence of dinosaur fossils in the area and showed us examples of fossilized bone, waves, dung and more, including a fossilized palm tree that she discovered in the park.

She also told us about the procedures in place to prevent zebra mussels from contaminating the lake. Lake Mead was already infected so Lake Powell questions every vehicle coming in and if any of the answers indicate it might be contaminated, it has to be decontaminated with water of at least a hundred and forty degrees.

I would have thought they would decontaminate every boat coming into the Lake. After all, it takes only one scumbag to lie about having just been to Lake Mead to contaminate the lake.

As usual, the talk ended with the message that we should only take pictures and leave only footprints.

We got picked up and headed for the Defiance House Lodge, a very modern hotel overlooking the lake.

The view was gorgeous. Dinner was on our own tonight but Gordon had arranged a little reception at the restaurant to give a little gift to everyone who is part of the Bon Voyage Club (anyone that was a repeat Insight customer). About half of us received a little zip wallet with a pen and notepad inside.

Dinner, however, took so long that we gave up on the idea of going for a walk anywhere. Given my time back, I would have taken the shuttle down to the beach right after we arrived and walked back to the hotel from there.

Dinner didn’t end until 7:30 and by then I just wanted to take a few pics, shower and organize my photos. I could see the sunset from my window, but without clouds, it was just a blinding ball of light though it did light up the landscape to the east quite nicely.

So I relaxed for the evening. The next day was an earlier start with a 7:15 departure for the drive to Bryce through Capitol Reef and the Grand Staircase. All day Gordon was laughing over how much we loved the scenery and kept saying how what we were seeing was nothing compared to tomorrow.