Day 77 - Cedar Breaks National Monument, UT & Valley of Fire State Park, NV

We left Bryce Canyon and headed towards our first stop for the day, Cedar Breaks National Monument.

We were travelling on Route 89 and to get to Cedar Breaks we came off onto the 143. It was just after this junction where we saw our favourite road sign so far:

I love that they must get so many people coming onto the 143 thinking its the 89 that they need to put a sign up. The best thing is that the 143 sign is just a couple of metres after the 'This is not the 89' sign just in case you didn't get the message the first time!

The 143 is known as the Patchwork Scenic Highway. It is a 55-mile road that is supposed 'to show different environments in colour'. It was a very pretty road, taking you through farmland, meadows, lakes and forest. There were times when we felt we could have been in the alps with the lakes, pine trees and the wooden chalet-style houses.

We reached Cedar Breaks and parked up by the visitors center so that we could get our park map, park paper, passport stamp, and so Lee could have his much-loved walk around the astronomy book section just in case there is anything new here compared to other parks! There wasn't!

Cedar Breaks National Monument is a natural amphitheater stretching 3 miles across and 2,000 feet down. There is a short walk along the edge which we did to take in the view.

Around the top of the Monument were loads of lovely wild flowers with volunteer rangers explaining what each one was (and probably stopping stupid people from picking or treading on them). Given how much desert we have seen recently, it was nice to see green fields with flowers and bees.

Back on the road, we now headed out of Utah and into Nevada. We've stayed in Las Vegas a number of times but for this trip, decided to do something different so we headed towards Valley of Fire State Park where we were camping for the night.

Not far from Valley of Fire, we spotted a little museum and decided to check it out (the decision was helped as I needed a wee!). The museum was called Lost City Museum and its located in a little town called Overton. The museum was originally built to house artifacts from sites (ancient and non-ancient) that were flooded when Lake Mead was formed but it was extended in the 80s to also include a prehistoric Ancestral Puebloan site that archaeologists found next door. You can see the excavation of this site inside the museum itself. The best part about the museum for us was the replica Puebloan houses outside which you can freely play in. We're big kids really!

Our final stop was Valley of Fire State Park which is only 40 minutes from Las Vegas. We were surprised we hadn't heard of this place before given the number of trips we've made to Vegas in the past, it would be really easy to hire a car and head out to the park for the day to get away from the madness of the strip.

The park is not on fire, although given how hot it was, it felt like it should be! The name comes from the 'fire' coloured Aztec sandstone in the park. We did the scenic drive around the park, stopping off at some of the look outs and trail heads to take photos and stretch our legs. It was too hot and probably too dangerous to do any hike longer than 10 minutes but there was so much to see from the car, we didn't mind. The last thing we saw before heading to the campsite was the 2,000 year old petroglyphs at Atlatl Rock. This is the largest concentration of petroglyphs in the state. In the past we have been looking at petroglyphs high up but it was great to climb the stairs and see them up close. These ancient people have a very similar drawing style to me, I love stick men.

We loved the campsite we were at. It was a State Park campsite and only $20 for the night which included the $10 entrance fee. Given the price, you got a lot for your money compared to other campsites. Each site had a fire pit with a grill, covered picnic table, tent pad and water spigot. There were flushing toilets, sinks with running water and free showers. The sites were well spread out so it didn't feel like you had neighbours and there were lots of rocks to climb on and check out the views of the park (which of course Lee did!).

The sites also came with your own bees. These little fellas would sit in the water spigot waiting for you to give them some water. There were signs up suggesting putting little dishes of water down for them so they leave the spigot alone although our ones weren't keen on this and one even ended up in the water bottle. He survived thanks to Lee's quick actions rescuing him.

For dinner we had jacket potatoes and sausages cooked on the fire. This was our first ever time cooking jacket potatoes from scratch on a fire and it worked out really well. Lee did a good job making sure the inside was cooked and the outside lovely and crispy, maybe a little on the carbony side.

After the success of the dashboard cookies, we decided to try some of the left over cookie dough on the fire. We wrapped them up in foil and stuck them in with the potatoes. We learnt afterwards that cookies cook quicker than potatoes as when we took them out, they were black! The one edible corner of one of the cookies did taste good so something we will need to try again but maybe only keep them in for a fraction of them time!

Our night in Valley of Fire was so peaceful. There was very little sound from either humans or animals and even with Vegas being so close, the stars looked stunning.

Day 76 - Making a Bad Experience a Good One

I didn't write much in the last post about our campsite: there was a reason for this.

We usually stay within the National Parks where the campsites tend to be basic with vault toilets and occasionally, if we're lucky, flushing toilets and maybe sinks with running water. But the pros of staying in a National Park is the experience of being in the heart of a stunning location. For Bryce Canyon, we decided to stay outside the National Park for a change. We chose Ruby's Inn Campground as it was still close to the Bryce Canyon entrance; there was even a free Bryce Canyon shuttle stop just outside the campsite but it was also part of a town with bars, restaurants and other activities to do.

We really enjoyed staying at Ruby's for the most part but we did have one bad experience which nearly put us off ever returning.

It was difficult to choose the site we wanted as the tent camping area is not very big and there are a number of group campsites nearby which we have learnt to avoid if you want a decent night's sleep. We chose a site which we thought was far enough away from the group camping so that we wouldn't be disturbed. We were wrong!

We headed back to the tent after dinner and started to get ready for bed when we realised just how noisy the groups were. The first was made up of American kids who must have been young teenagers. They all decided to go for a shower at the same time, which was after quiet time and all we could hear was the screaming and shouting from them arguing over who was going in which shower. But at least the person who was trying to control them was also trying to get them to be quiet and eventually, with showers done, we didn't hear from this group again.

Behind our tent was a wooden fence which we'd assumed was the end of the campsite. It was actually a divider for a group campsite and behind the fence was a group of French students in their late teens. The noise from this group actually got louder and louder as the night went on. It was so bad, I called security 3 times. Each time, they came out, told them to be quiet only for the group to get noisier. There is certain noise I can tolerate especially when I know that people are having fun but the loud music (French (c)rap again!), a game of basketball right by the fence meters away from our tent, and then screaming and shouting all after midnight were a step to far.

The next day, tired and angry, I emailed Ruby's about the experience the night before and to my surprise I received an email back apologising, with details of how they have dealt with the noisy group and how they going to make sure this doesn't happen again. We were also given a full refund for our night's stay.

This one very well-worded email changed my mood completely and rather than us saying "we're never going back there", we're now saying "we'd try it again". Just shows what good customer service can do!

Day 76 - Grand Canyon North Rim, AZ, Coral Pink Sand Dunes & Bryce Canyon, UT

We woke up early to squeeze in one more hike in the Grand Canyon North Rim before we needed to leave.

Having spent a couple of hours yesterday exploring the Cape Royal side of North Rim, we decided to spend this morning exploring the areas of the rim that run between the campsite and the Grand Canyon Lodge.

We took the Transept Trail from the campsite and hiked the 1 mile to the Grand Canyon Lodge. The trail went alongside the rim of the canyon, then came in so that you were walking within the forest, then opened out again to the rim. It was very pretty and great to see so many different landscapes in such a short hike. When we reached the lodge, we headed out to Bright Angel Point, a half a mile round trip hike out to a platform with awesome views of the canyon. Whilst this hike was very short, there were lots of hills and drops making it a look more difficult than it seemed but the view made it all worth it.

Before hiking back to the campsite we stopped off for a nose around the Grand Canyon Lodge. Inside it was stunning, like an old hunting lodge only with awesome views. The cabins outside the lodge looked really comfortable and I loved the two rocking chairs on the porch; I can see Lee and I sitting on these one day watching the sun go down. The lodge is probably a good alternative if you're looking for a little more comfort than the campsites although even how impressive the building is and all the facilities, I bet it's not cheap!

We picked up a coffee and a cinnamon roll from the bakery onsite at the Grand Canyon Lodge (it turns into the Saloon in the afternoons!) and then headed back along the Transept Trail for about a mile, back to our campsite.

Once we'd packed up the campsite, we headed on the road towards Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. Having already stayed at White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, we were not expected to be blown away by this park but since we were going right by it, we decided to take a look anyway. I am so glad we did, it was amazing!

The dunes are formed from the erosion of pink-colored Navajo Sandstone which surrounds the park. Unlike the White Sands, this sand is not cold like white sand but is just as much fun to play in! It only cost $8 for us to enter (cost is per vehicle rather than per person). We walked along the short nature trail that led us up into the dunes. Once there, we headed towards the biggest dune where people seemed to be snowboarding. Lee decided that climbing the dune was a good idea, it might have seemed good whilst we were at the bottom but when walking up sand, you only seem to move a few millimeters uphill at a time as the sand pushed you back down. After a lot of very hard effort in a very hot sun, we made it to the top and were able to appreciate the view whilst we caught our breath.

We later found out that the snowboards and sledges were available to hire from the visitors center, this would have been a cool thing to try although after each time you go down, you have to climb the dune again so maybe it was a good thing we didn't know about this beforehand. We also found out on the way back to the car that this area is a great place to hire an off road vehicle and explore the dunes, sounds much more fun than trying to climb them and something we would definitely do if we ever returned.

Our final destination for the night was Ruby's Campground located just outside Bryce Canyon National Park. We quickly pitched in the drizzle before it started to rain hard and then headed into Bryce Canyon National Park where we sheltered from the rain in the visitors center. Once the rain had stopped, we headed out for some exploring.

Our plan was to go to the furthest end of the park and work backwards so we followed the scenic road 8 miles to Rainbow Point, the highest point in the park and then using the park map, headed back towards to entrance stopping at pull outs and doing small hikes that looked interesting.

Bryce Canyon is spectacular! The rock formations that make up the views at Bryce Canyon National Park are called hoodoos. Geologists say they were formed by erosion but I prefer the Native American story as to how they came to be:

The Legend People were notorious for living too heavily upon the land. They would drink up all these streams and the rivers in the springtime so there would be no water left for all the other creatures come summer.

And if that's not bad enough, then in the fall, they would gobble up all the pine nuts; there would be no pine nuts for the other animals to eat to help them survive the winters. This behavior by The Legend People went on for years and years and years, and all the other animals and all the other creatures complained about how rude they were and how reckless they behaved. And they finally got the attention of the powerful god, Coyote.

And because Coyote is famous for being a trickster, he decided he would punish The Legend People in a very creative way. What he did is he invited them to a banquet and he promised enough food to be able to eat all day long.

So, of course, all The Legend People came and they came dressed in their finest, most-colorful clothing or in their most elaborate war paint, and they sat down to Coyote's great big banquet table. But before anyone could take a single bite, he cast a spell on them that turned them to stone. The Legend People tried to flee up over the top of the canyon rim, and in so doing trampling on top of each other, writhing bodies trying to escape over the edge of the canyon, and clustered right on the brink.

Although we were staying in a campsite at Ruby's Inn, it felt more like a holiday complex. There were a number of hotels, shops, restaurants and other entertainment (such as a rodeo) all within walking distance. We did a little exploring around the shops and then headed to Ebenezers Barn Grill. It cost $32 each and included in that we had a very large and lovely chicken and pork dinner, soft drinks (you had to pay extra for alcohol), a dessert (we think it was a peach sponge) and a 50-minute western music show.

Day 75 - Horseshoe Bend, Navajo Bridge & Grand Canyon North Rim, AZ

Today we left Lake Powell for the final time and followed the Colorado River to the Grand Canyon North Rim. Most tourists go to the South Rim, we chose the North Rim as it is quieter and it is somewhere we have not seen before. 

We kicked off our journey with a stop at Horseshoe Bend, a meander in the Colorado River which is horseshoe-shaped. It is located just outside Page and only took us about 15 minutes to get there. For such a big attraction, we were surprised at how underdeveloped the site was. There was a small car park for cars only and an area for coaches to offload, a dirt trail about a mile long up and down some steep terrain where you reach a viewing area, and there were a couple of places with safety barriers but mostly you are on a cliff edge. There was no visitors center, gift shop, official personnel telling you to stick to the paths or info stations. For a National Parks-run monument, this was odd. We did see some construction work so maybe development is in progress. For such an undeveloped site, there were a huge number of tourists, coaches were dropping hundreds of people off each hour alongside people who had turned up in their own cars or RVs. We ended up going off the beaten track a little to get a good view of the river away from too many people although this did involve some rock climbing! 

Once we left Horseshoe Bend, we continued to follow the river until we crossed at Navajo Bridge. A lot of the time we couldn't see the river as it was deep down below us; all you can see is an opening between the flats. At Navajo Bridge, we stopped and stretched our legs with a walk across the bridge and to read the information stations about the Navajo Nation. We hadn't realised just how big this tribal area was or that it covered 4 states. We left Navajo Bridge and also the Navajo Nation and followed the road that went along Marble Canyon before climbing. At first we just went to the top of the canyon but then as we climbed higher and higher sandstone canyons turned into lakes, green meadows and thick forests. 

We arrived at the North Rim with enough time to pitch and then explore! We decided to spend the rest of the afternoon taking Fin along the 23-mile Cape Royal Scenic Road. This road travels along the North Rim and has a number of short trails, scenic lookouts and interesting roadways which provides you with a fantastic view of the Grand Canyon. We had a lot of fun doing this drive. All the hikes were short, a mile at most for a return journey and all the terrain was flat. The best part was the view you were rewarded with at the end of the hike, it felt like you had cheated to get a reward.  

We enjoyed Cape Royal Scenic Road so much, we ended up getting back to the campsite after the sun went down meaning we had to cook in the dark. With our headlamps on and a good fire going, it wasn't too bad, at least there weren't too many biting bugs at the Grand Canyon compared to other campsites. Lee cooked us a fantastic steak with fresh salad and corn on the cob, yum yum! 

After dinner we headed to bed and we had a lovely peaceful night's sleep, just what we needed! 

Day 74 - Antelope Canyon, AZ

Antelope Canyon shot to fame when photographer Peter Lik sold one of his photos of the canyon, entitled Phantom, for $6.5 million. It became the most expensive photo ever sold. You can see the photo here.

Antelope Canyon is a slot canyon: it is formed by rushing water eroding the rock. If it wasn't difficult enough to get on a tour due to the number of people trying to take a $6.5 million photo, the canyon is closed if there is rain, even if it's miles away, as the canyon regularly floods.

There are two Antelope Canyons you can visit, Upper and Lower. We chose the most popular and the source of the Peter Lik photo, Upper. The Lower Canyon is supposed to be quieter and a little more challenging to hike, one to come back to when we return to the US!

You have to take a guided tour for both canyons. We initially thought it was a way of controlling the number of people going into the canyon and for tour companies to make money but we learnt that it's more for safety. In the 90s, 11 people died in the Lower Canyon when a rain storm 30 miles away caused a gush of water to come into the canyon and flooded it. The weather is now closely monitored and tours are cancelled or rescheduled if there is any risk of flood.

There are only 3-4 tour companies, we went with Antelope Slot Canyon. The tour was well organised and the tour guide Leonard was excellent! We initially wanted the midday tour to see the famous sun beam come through the canyon (as in the very expensive photo) but it was fully booked, the only slot available was 6:30am. Whilst neither of us are morning people, we are really glad we went on the early tour. Besides from it being a lot cheaper, we were the first tour into the canyon so we didn't have to squeeze past any other tour groups (which you can see in the video we had to do on the way out) or struggle with having other peoples' heads in our photos.

We were lucky to have Leonard as our tour guide. He gave so many hints and tips on how to get the best photos, pointing at areas to direct our cameras at that we would never have considered that gave us effects such as Dragon's Eye and Monument Valley. See if you can spot these in the video!

Asides from appearing to be more helpful than the other tour guides and not rushing us around the canyon as we had expected, Leonard played some traditional Navajo music once we had reached the end of the Canyon. The sounds he made were both magical and eerie, just like the Canyon.

Lee Special - Dashboard Cookies

Day 74 - Wahweap Lake Powell, AZ

We left Monument Valley and headed West towards Lake Powell. We were staying for 2 nights in Wahweap, just outside the city of Page.

Wahweap is more developed than Bullfrog, it has a huge hotel with a restaurant, a bar and even a pool. The campsite had a very large campstore with laundry and showers. Given how empty and quiet Bullfrog was, we couldn't believe that just the otherside of the lake in Wahweap, the campsite was full as was the walk-in area and the overflow.

We stopped of on the way to Page at a grocery store for some supplies, it was the first time we've ever seen goats in the car park. We always find it interesting going to a grocery store in a different state as in each state there is a slight difference in the food available, in particular around meat and vegetables. This grocery store was in an tribal area so the majority of the customers must have been Native Americans. We saw goat and mutton available (hopefully they weren't related to the poor goats in the parking lot!) and huge sacks of specialist flour for making Fry Bread. This store also had an excellent bakery and we may have tried one of their handmade doughnuts :)

During our time at this side of Lake Powell, we only had one thing planned and that was to see Antelope Canyon. We hadn't pre-booked a tour, something which I would recommend you do if you are visiting here to make sure you get the time you want. We went into the store for Slot Canyon Tours and was lucky enough to get one of the last spaces available but it was on a 6:30am tour!

Lee is going to talk more about the tour in another blog entry but it was awesome! 

Asides from Antelope Canyon, there was other exploring to be done! 

We visited Glen Canyon Dam, a huge concrete arch gravity dam that manages the water flowing out of Lake Powell and downstream to the Grand Canyon. The visitors center at the dam was actually really good. There were lots of information stations and hands on exhibits that explains how the water is controlled and monitored to ensure the lower states and Mexico receive the right amount of water without damaging the ecosystems that live in and around the water. It was interesting to hear how they were trialing a new approach to releasing water so that it appears to flood, this is more representative of what happens in real life and whilst it has a dramatic short term effect, it also allows for longer term changes that would have been seen naturally without the dam in place. 

There were daily tours at the dam which you could sign up for. We visited in the afternoon and were told that all tours after 12pm had been cancelled as it was too hot. We booked on the 10:30am tour the next morning, planning to go back to the dam after our Antelope Canyon tour. But there was a problem. We were not aware that you needed to arrive for the tour 30 minutes early to check in and go through security. We turned up at 10:30 to find that we were too late. We knew they were going to cancel the later tours due to the heat so decided reluctantly had to miss this out. Even though we missed the official tour, we still walked across the bridge which had sidewalks on either side with gaps in the fence to look through and take pictures. 

We then drove back to the campsite stopping off at the scenic pull outs to get a good view of the lake. The water looked lovely from the top, really blue and inviting given how hot it was. We did think about kayaking around the lake but remembered how hot it was in Bullfrog. 

On the way back to the campsite, we saw a sign to a beach. We parked up the car and walked down the trail. The beach was a hike to get to and whilst it was mostly downhill getting to the beach, it was a long climb up hill getting back to the car! Had we had some shade on the beach, we might have stayed for longer but even dipping our toes in the lake wasn't very cooling, if anything, it made you feel hotter due to the reflection of the sun off the water. We were surprised as well by the colour of the water, it looked like a dirty muddy grey, maybe from people kicking up the dirty from the bottom rather than the clear water we were expecting. This made the beach even less inviting so we headed back to the campsite to cool off.

We had two nights at the campsite in Wahweap. At first, we thought we were so lucky with the location of our site. We were in the tent only area and we had a huge site out the way from most people, it was a short walk to the rest room and even the shop, showers and laundry were close by. We started to realise early on that this was not going to be the 'perfect' campsite we had initially thought. The initial signs were the number of 2 person identical blue tents on the other sites around us. Normally, you might have 1 or 2 tents of different varieties on each site, it was odd to have 4, 5 and sometimes 6 tents that were identical on each site. Then we saw a number of large white mini buses with the word "Champions" written over them. Finally, when we went to the rest room, we realised what was going on. A very large group of French students had booked into the campsite but rather than being in the group area (which is where they should have gone!) they had booked the majority of the tent campsites in our loop and the next loop over. The rest rooms, with a small number of power supplies inside and outside, were being used to charge their phones which were being used to play French rap music and YouTube clips. They were no longer rest rooms but a 24 hour social club (they were in and around the rest rooms throughout the night when we got up to wee). 

I don't want people thinking I'm a grumpy old English lady, I could have coped with several (hundred) French students hanging around the rest rooms but they were all clearly bored, seemed to hang out for most of the day in the campsite so they were noisy, they used our campsite as a short cut to the showers walking straight past us sometimes sitting near the fire and there were far too many of them for the campsite to cope with, the queues for the showers were so long, we ended up having to go late at night when they were dirty and disgusting from over use.

In one of the few non-French sites, we also had a Latin American family who most nights tried to go into competition with the French (c)rap music playing their own latin tunes very loudly well past quiet hours but what kept us awake was the huge argument they had one night. One of the girls started screaming and shouting at one of the boys, threatening to call the police. It sounded like a drink induced argument, but the whole family joined in. The police were not called but at least things did eventually quieten down. 

The French students and Latin American family weren't the only issue we had. We noticed when we arrived that a number of tents had been seriously pegged down, many with rope to nearby trees and even to the picnic bench. We couldn't work out why when the sky was lovely and blue. Each night, a huge wind and rain storm came in. It lasted most of the night and was usually cleared up and back to blue sky by sunrise. We pegged our tent down as much as we could but the howling wind and the sound of the tent billowing makes it difficult to sleep, especially when you're keeping on eye open for a thunderstorm just in case you need to make a quick dash to the car for protection! We were lucky, our tent stood up against the wind even though many of the poles are really bent after the big storm at Monument Valley, they're a little more bent now after this! Some of the French students' tents didn't fare so well. Those who hadn't pegged in or put the poles in fully, came back from the restroom (aka the Social Club) to find a collapsed heap of material and plastic poles. Oh dear! 

Asides from our neighbours, we cooked some lovely meals on the fire at this campsite, sunbathed in the scorching sun and managed to get a couple of hours sleep - usually during the day. 

On the final day, we treated ourselves to a trip to a local bar / restaurant. The storm had come in early and it was too wet to cook on the fire and too windy to get the propane out, we wanted some decent wifi (which we'd been without for 5 days now) to get some blog entries posted and we wanted to listen to some decent music. We found a place called Dam Bar & Grill where we sat at the bar, shared some loaded fries and enjoyed the free power and wifi!