We are now about midway through our trip. The list of states
crossed – some for only a few hours and others for many days – grows long.
Today was likely our last hike in canyon country. We leave
the Grand Canyon tomorrow for a National Park (Mead Lake) just outside of Las
Vegas. Again we will move from the cold weather of high altitudes to the unbelievably
hot weather of the lower desert areas. Everything changes in extremes during
this trip, especially the weather!
Speaking of weather I will include photos of our trip to
Page, Arizona. We needed to take hot showers and to plug into electricity to recharge our
van’s batteries, so we stayed in the town at a commercial campground (AKA a RV
parking lot). The winds were furious so we ended up staying for two days.
During that time we booked a tour of Antelope Slot Canyon, which is accessible
only through Navajo tour companies.
The slot canyon (which comically
Marie-Andrée pronounces “slut” canyons) were beautiful but because they are so
popular with tourists and many (most?) tourist’s primary purpose for visiting a
place seems to be to get the perfect photo, the tour focused almost exclusively
on this. Yet another photo-op, which was a bit disappointing to me, but I am
glad to have seen Antelope Canyon all the same. I must admit that we got some
beautiful photos, too!
After the winds seemed to calm we moved away from town and
off to the shores of Lake Powell (an artificial lake created by damming the
Colorado River) where we camped directly on the beach.
In the photo below you can see that other people were camping here, too. In fact as the evening advance, more high school kids showed up with coolers of beer and loud music -- it was the last day of school... we didn't get much sleep that night, but that is another story...
This was a place I had
been dreaming about staying since the conception of this trip. I imaged
kayaking into slot canyons, which would be emerged in the turquoise waters of
Lake Powell, allowing us to silently drift into them and quietly explore. Off
we set in our kayak, set-up in tandem mode.
We started
paddling down wind and with the current – everything was beautiful. I did see a
very dark cloud formation with a hole-like-formation in the middle, but I
didn’t want to be a party-pooper, so I ignored it. Ignoring something, as I
soon learned, does not make it go away! As we were exploring the first inlet
(not really a slot) I noticed the winds picking up and it started to rain. I
suggested we make our way back to the campsite and as we arrived at the main
part of the lake, the white caps were breaking gently at first and then more
and more furiously. Without speaking, Marie-Andrée and I both paddled harder and
harder, trying to get back as rapidly as possible. The problem was that we had
never kayaked this boat in tandem mode before (I had taken it out in the ocean,
as you read in my past blogs) but this was Marie-Andrée’s first time in it. It
is much more tipsy than our other kayak and as the white caps turned into surf,
the boat started to sway. Did I mention that Lake Powell is a very deep lake
and that the water is very cold? We stayed as close to shore as possible but I
had setup the skeg incorrectly and the boat kept turning away from shore and
towards the middle of the lake. We worked so hard that my hands are blistered
and painful still. We made it, though and without tipping. Phew. Exciting but
frightening! I am starting to wonder if this boat will be the end of me!
That is not the end of the story, however. Once back on
shore and very tired from the exertion, we needed to carry the boat back to the
campsite (very difficult given the wind gusts and the uphill climb through sand
to get to our site). The next moment of excitement came when we tried to tie
the boat down using every rope and bungee we had so it wouldn’t get blown away.
I was kneeling in the sand, tying it to the hitch but the sand was whipping
against my face and eyes. We were literally caked in sand. We also had to get
the tent-top of the van “popped” down
quickly so it would not rip off. I am not a small person but even pulling with
all my weight I couldn't get the top locked down. Every time I released
even a little, the roof “popped” back up out of control. Thank goodness that Marie-Andrée was their -- together we were able to pull on the roof and lock it down safely. Later that evening,
when the parks people came by to make sure everyone on the beach was OK, they
told us that they had seen wind rip the tops off these vans in the past… So,
only one eventful night on Lone Rock Beach and only one kayaking excursion to
slot canyons (which we never did see). Once the storm passed, however, the evening was beautiful -- you would have never known what it had been like just a few hours previously!!
Off the next day, dirty and tired,
towards the Grand Canyon, but first, on the way out of town, we stopped back at the campground in Page that
we stayed in ... we still had the code to the bathrooms and we were in real need
of a shower to rid us of all the imbedded sand so we snuck into the showers and got clean again! :)
All my life I have wanted to see the Grand Canyon. I
expected a moment of spiritual epiphany when I would finally see it. I thought
my world would change – BGC (Before Grand Canyon) and AGC (After Grand Canyon).
But it didn’t. I felt almost like I was staring at a post card instead of seeing
the real thing.
Now after 3 days here and 2 full days of hiking, I can see the
Grand Canyon in it’s splendor and it is beautiful. I have come to realize that
to really see a place, you have to walk in and around it. Just looking at it
from a safe distance makes it flat and unmoving.
During our hike down into the canyon today I felt waves of
dizziness from vertigo. The EDGE is always there in my peripheral vision. Marie-Andrée
tried to be helpful and told me: “just don’t look”. Just don’t look at the
Grand Canyon when you are on a rim and the depths are lurking below??? How can
you not look???? And why would you even come to the Grand Canyon if you can’t look
at it???? At some point during today’s hike, I just couldn’t go any further. Not
from fatigue but from fear. I wished
that I had blinders, like a horse, so that I could pretend that it was just a
trail, like any other trail. What is weird is that people climb all over the
edge without believing they could fall. As I watch them my mind iterally starts to see each one of them falling into the depths below. My reaction is to leave
and to get somewhere far from the edge and far from other people!
As I was downloading todays photos – once again faded by the
bright mid-day sun, I wondered why it is we never take any lovely sunrise or
sunset photos. Then I remembered an important detail: sunrise is at coffee hour
and sunset is at cocktail hour!!! Of course we have no warm lit photos – one
must have priorities!! And then I had an epiphany: the “Enhance” button of my
iPhotos program! It creates the warm light of sunrise and sunset without having
to miss either of my two favorite times to be back at the campsite! OK… not as
beautiful as the real thing, but then again: priorities!
Tomorrow we start making our way to Las Vegas (Vega in
Spanish means Meadows). So out of nature and into the glitz and glimmer of Las
Vegas we will go. We will keep you posted! We have a place to park our van at the home of one of the Cirque du Soleil artists, who is the niece of friends of Marie-Andrée's (Sylvie and her husband Michel) who are also traveling in this area in their pop-up van and will be with us during our stay in Las Vegas. We are going to the show Kà, in which Marylène is performing!! She got us tickets which is unbelievably generous!! We will also see the show Love. We will tell you about all that on the next post!!
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