Lake Powell here we come - 299 miles (except for the additional miles we had to take because of a detour through the Navajo reservation)
And the reason I use rapt in the title to this post is that we were supposed to go to the Grand Canyon. Except, well the weather was throwing us curve balls. 9 degrees at night and 22 degrees during the day at the Grand Canyon, according to a wonderful, but cold, woman who owned a RV site near the Grand Canyon. Let's see! Um, no. First of all, Marilyn wasn't equipped to handle that kind of cold with the clothing she brought and neither Justin or I really wanted to try to unpack boxes in order to find our cold winter wear. It was a difficult decision to make, but after a bit of fussing among the traveling trio, I solidified plans to get us to Lake Powell on the border between Arizona and Utah.
Driving up Interstate 17, we hit some steep descents, especially in the area of Montezuma's Castle National Monument, although we never stopped to check it out since we were heading to Lake Powell.
On the way, we travelled through Flagstaff, which is a very cute town. A bunch of snow still on the ground and we found one of the best grocery stores of our entire road trip: New Frontiers Natural Marketplace. We also got to drive along the infamous Route 66 for a short distance. They sell all local organic foods and we barely made it out of there only buying the few things that we planned to buy. Just north of Flagstaff, we saw Humphreys Peak, designated as the highest point in Arizona. We held a contest for who could get the closest to the actual height of the point, with the incentive of my baking a scrumptious dessert for the winner. Justin won, guessing that the peak was somewhere over 12,000 feet. Humphreys Peak stands at 12,637 feet. It'll likely have blueberries in it once I bake it, or maybe kiwi...
North of Humphreys Peak we caught US-89 N twisting through Hopi and Navajo Nation Indian Reservation. The landscape changed significantly and the warm tones of rusty orange seemed to leap out of every obliquity. But before we get to the pretty pictures, this guy tried to fuse the front of his car with the back of ours, or more laconically, considered our snappy RV an obstacle and figured that we'd be able to readily remove ourselves from his preoccupied vision of windows where most of us see cars and people into a tiny shoulder. Although he thought we'd be ok with him seeing through us, it turned out, he had to find a good time to drive headlong into potential oncoming traffic. His expression is priceless, and his wife seems complicit or indifferent, maybe even post-egging him on.
This should have been a quick drive. Unfortunately, highway 89 north of Cameron is closed for 8 months. We didn't realize that either until we were detoured onto Highway 160 heading east. According to the Arizona Daily Sun, which I read later, the Navajo Division of Transportation were conducting repairs on a 150-foot stretch of highway that collapsed about 25 miles south of Page. We were heading to Page. The detour added many miles. Anyway, long story short, we went east and north west instead of due north for quite a ways. The number of miles starts making me tense, so let's just say, at least we held riveting discussions about: gun violence, the need for kids in schools to be encouraged to express different emotions so that they aren't harboring deep seeded hatred, and reviewed the various positions held by law abiding gun owners, parents of children suffering from mental illnesses, fans of violent television and video games, critics of violent TV and video games and teachers who don't want to be cops but teachers.
We arrived at Lake Powell and were greeted by the most spectacular sky brimming with stars I've ever seen. The only time I've seen so many stars is when I spent time in Joshua Tree years ago. Wow. Once our eyes adjusted to the night, we realized that our campsite was only yards away from the lake. The lake would treat us to an eyeful of huskiness in the morning. We played Scrabble. Justin won! Rematch called by Marilyn and I. Then, it was time for some shut eye. I have this amazing eye pillow filled with lavender and chamomile that puts me right out.
We slept steps away from this gorgeous lake. This is what we woke up to:
We walked over to the visitor center and found out that there were still seats available for the Antelope slot canyon tour. We couldn't refuse. The outside temperature was cold. As you can see, we were pretty bundled up, but it was so incredibly invigorating. The cruise crew provided us listening devices so that we could learn more about the dam, who depends on Lake Powell, the coal plant on Navajo land seen in the distance and the history of the area.
At night, we built a gorgeous fire and enjoyed our discussions about astronomy. Marilyn loves building fires and so do we, so it was a pleasure to throw all of our efforts into something that provides warmth and such lovely impressions on the mind.
