There She Goes Again

Up around 7:00 and after a yummy  breakfast of Frosted Flakes (the hotel has a great store with prices cheaper than what I pay at home) we headed out.  Took a photo of all of us, including Mini-Ree, at the Bryce Canyon sign and then headed for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to see Kodachrome Basin State Park which is where we are now.  I can’t get a cell phone signal but they have wireless internet.  We started out on a three mile hike, which due to a wrong turn which took us up a ledge that scared the crap out of me, ended up being four miles.  It is beautiful here, as is just about everything I’ve seen so far.  We kept seeing a couple on mountain bikes on the trail so when they passed us toward the end we talked to them and found out they are from New Zealand and are traveling around the states for six months using ONLY their mountain bikes.  Whoa.  They’ve been to Yosemite and are now here in Utah so they’ve covered some territory.  They are going to go up to Canada via Colorado – what a massive undertaking.  Good for them, those Kiwi’s are hearty stock!  I am covered in dust and not raring to go do another hike and neither is Charlotte so we sent John off on a 1-1/2 mile birding trail.  There’s a nice patch of shade here at the Visitor Center so we decided to sit here and I thought it would be a good time to catch up (start) this journal.  Imagine my surprise when I turned little AspireOne (that’s what it says on him so that’s going to be his name now) and it found a network.  With high signal strength.  This is crazy.  But now I’m all caught up so it’s time to go update my Facebook status and send my Mom a Mother’s Day email since I CAN’T GET A CELL PHONE SIGNAL!  

Upon leaving the Visitor Center we headed down Cottonwood Canyon Road, a 40-mile unpaved mess of dirt, rocks and lots of bouncing around.  We stopped to check out Grosvenor Arch, which was, of course, beautiful and then continued on our merry way.  The Arch side trip took about 20 minutes and three hours after setting off on our 40-mile odyssey (yes, three hours) we returned to a lovely, modern, paved road.  We felt like we were driving 120 mph after the journey we’d just come from.  I have a new appreciation for pavement. 

As we crossed from Utah into Arizona we went back in time an hour so we’re back on California time, or as it’s known elsewhere, Pacific Standard Time.  Lake Powell is something to see – a huge, and I do mean HUGE, lake surrounded by buttes and massive rock formations.  I think it would be really amazing to spend a couple of days on a houseboat on this lake.  Maybe next time.  After crossing the Glen Canyon Dam we arrived in the town I have been waiting years to arrive in, Page, Arizona.  Years ago  I saw a commercial which used Antelope Canyon as the setting, I managed to find out where it was and I have been determined to see it for myself ever since. 

We checked into Debbie’s Hideaway Motel which was almost identical to the four-plex apartment building I lived in when I first moved out of my parents house.  Literally, it was practically the same layout.  We hit Safeway for food, since we have a kitchen, and settled in to watch the finale of The Amazing Race.  Poor Luke, dude I thought you had it all wrapped up.  I slept like crap even though I had the real bed in the bedroom (Charlotte and John were on an air mattress in the living room – if I’d slept on it my back would have been a mess the following day).  My sunburn is beyond ridiculous.  I keep expecting to look at my arm and see blood streaming down it or huge blisters about to explode.  No matter which way I laid some burned part of me (back of both legs, back of both arms and side of my neck) had pressure on it and nothing made it feel better.  I was awake for good at 5:00 am.