Antelope Canyon and Monument Valley

We were up early this morning to get to Antelope Canyon.  We had a reservation for 8:45 and it was recommended that we arrive 90 minutes early.  Why, you ask?  I have no idea.  They said we must be at least 45 minutes early or our reservation will be cancelled.  Why, you ask?  I have no idea.  But, being the rule-followers that we are, we got there early around 7:30.  The Navajo people who run the tour company out to their amazing slot canyon on Navajo tribal land showed up a little after 8:00.  We hung out in the car for a while and then sat on a bench in the shade until they finally got started around 8:45.

We were grouped with a guide and rode about 15 minutes in the back of these pickup trucks out to the canyon.

It is very sandy here and some of the "road" was very loose sand.  We were glad not to be driving.  The pickup did fine, though, although it was pretty bumpy.

We arrived at the entrance to the canyon where all the trucks for all the tour companies were lined up and the groups were lined up outside the canyon.

We joined the line and waited for our turn to go in.  At least it was shady.  When we got close to the entrance, our guide explained that the canyon is very narrow and there will be 2 way walking traffic so we must keep to the right.  We can take as many pictures as we want on the way through, but when we walk back out no pictures will be allowed.

Antelope Canyon is an amazing place that has become very popular in the last few years.  The only way to see it is to book a pricey guided tour with one of the few tour companies run by the Navajo people.  It is a slot canyon so it is very narrow and very deep.  The draw of this particular slot canyon is the amazing red sandstone walls that have been formed into swirling, twisting works of art through thousands of years of water and wind erosion.

Because Antelope Canyon has become so popular and is only 1/4 mile long and very narrow, it is always crowded.  The guided groups go in one after another and stick together during their walk through the canyon.  You would think that having this many people in such a small space would make it difficult to get any good pictures, but everyone spent most of the time looking up so it wasn't really hard to just take pictures looking up or over everyone's heads.

Photo bomb!

These pictures really don't do it justice.  I have heard that the ideal time to visit the canyon is midday when the sun is overhead and beams of light come streaming in through the narrow opening.  We couldn't make that timing work, but it was still extremely beautiful even in the morning.

Rodney stayed toward the front of the line by the guide so when we would get to a great picture spot, the guide would grab Rodney's phone and take the picture to demonstrate to the group.  He can obviously do a great job with these pictures since he does this all the time so Rodney was happy to hand over his phone.  This one was called "the heart of the canyon" by the guide.

This picture shows some sticks caught in the canyon during a flash flood.  They were really high up, which shows how dangerous flash floods can be in this area.

Picture of the day!  Our guide took this amazing family photo for us.

We finished walking through and exited out the other end before heading back in for our quick exit without pictures.

One of the families that was in our group was visiting America for 3 weeks from Holland.  We really enjoyed talking to them and hearing about their trip.  They were in their first week and still had plans to visit Monument Valley, the 5 Utah national parks, Yellowstone, and driving down the Pacific Coast Highway, stopping in San Francisco and San Diego.  We thought we were ambitious!  They were loving America so far and it was fun to see our beautiful country through their eyes.  They were especially loving the clear, blue skies here.  Sounds like they get A LOT of rain in Holland.

We said our good byes after the tour and headed down the road.  Monument Valley was next on the agenda.  We had considered skipping it today because it is a busy day, but we decided to go for it.  We stopped at a gas station on the way and struck up a conversation with another European tourist who also just began his vacation.  He is visiting America for 6 weeks including ending his trip in Maui.  We decided he had the right idea and that all vacations should end up in Maui.  I asked where he was from and he said he had just come from Phoenix.  That wasn't really what I meant.  He was on his way to Monument Valley as well so we thought we must have made a good choice to fit it in since so many people are coming from all over the world to see it!

We passed a nice park in Kayenta, AZ so we stopped for lunch.  It was really, really windy.  After lunch, the kids played on the playground and ran around in the skate park for a little while.

Soon we arrived at Monument Valley.  This area is also located on Navajo tribal land and is run by the Navajo people.  The park consists of a 17 mile unpaved loop "road" that takes you past some amazing rock formations.  It was a busy place and everyone had paid admission to the park, not to mention the huge gift shop that surely took in a pretty penny.  My personal opinion is that the Navajo should use some of this money on pavement as their unpaved road is pretty rough.  We did see tour trucks driving the road as well so maybe they like having a ridiculously ill-maintained road to force people to spend even more money to ride in their tour trucks after realizing that this road is going to ruin their car?

These formations are called the West and East Mittens because they look like hands in mittens.  How cool that they are next to each other and even facing the right directions to look like mittens!

This is West and East Mitten and Merrick Butte.

Elephant Butte.  The right side are the elephant's ears and trunk.

The Three Sisters looks like a Catholic nun facing her two pupils.

When we neared the Three Sisters formation, we were about to enter the loop portion of the road.  It had already been a very slow and bumpy drive up to this point with the main loop still left to go.  We looked at the formations that we would see if we continued around the loop and decided to cut our losses and just turn around.  We just didn't have time for this and it seemed that we had already seen the best formations.  This also further confirmed that we really just aren't "rock people".  I hope the Europeans enjoyed it more than we did.

We did see a dust devil on the way out of the park, which I was actually more excited about than the monuments.  Sorry, rocks, but I've always wanted to see a dust devil.  It was beginning to disappear by the time I took this picture, but you can still kind of see it in the center.

We finally got back on pavement and started to make our way to our hotel for the night in Cortez, CO.  I had plans to stop at the place where Forrest Gump ended his cross-country run just 12 miles on the other side of Monument Valley.  At this point in the trip, I felt I could really relate to Forrest: "I'm pretty tired...I think I'll go home now."  However, the GPS had other plans and took us right back to Kayenta instead.  Oh, well.  As we were passing through Kayenta, we had to slow down because a herd of sheep was in the road.  We were all pretty sure that one of the sheep had 3 horns.  It is interesting to note that during our 2 very brief encounters with this town, we saw several humans and animals with severe physical deformities.  I don't have an explanation for this, but it didn't make us want to hang out here very long just in case.

We had plans to stop at the Four Corners Monument on our way into Colorado.  I have always wanted to be in 4 states at one time, but when we got there and realized that this area is also located on Navajo tribal land we just kept on going.  We have given the Navajo enough of our money today.

When we arrived in Cortez, we checked into the hotel and went right to the indoor pool.  Caleb made a friend immediately and they played together until he had to leave.  We had scoped out a Mexican restaurant named La Casita de Cortez for dinner.  We got cleaned up and headed to dinner.  It was delicious and the service was very good.  Good prices too!  Definitely stop here for a meal if you're ever in town.  A great way to end a long day!

Zion National Park

Since we arrived in Utah a few days ago, I have had a hymn repeating in my head:

We're marching to Zion
Beautiful, beautiful Zion
We're marching upward to Zion
The beautiful city of God

Today our march is complete and we are finally going to experience this beautiful park.  I can see why the Mormons named it Zion.  It is awe-inspiring!

I had planned to be up by 6:00, but I overslept until 6:30.  I didn't set an alarm because my internal clock had been waking me up before 6:00 every day of this trip.  I guess I was still waking up on Central time.

The first shuttle bus from our hotel into the park left at 7:15.  We wanted to be early because the park and shuttle buses get very crowded and we wanted to beat the heat as much as possible as well.  We arrived at the shuttle stop at 7:55AM.  Still not bad.

I didn't realize it, but the shuttle only took as far as the park entrance.  We walked over the footbridge into the park to get in line for the shuttle that would take us around inside the park.  The line didn't look too bad.

Then I walked up to make sure we were in the right place and I saw how long the line really was.  Oh my.  There was a sign about 20 feet ahead of us in line that said the wait from that point was 30 minutes.  So much for beating the crowds and the heat.

Morgan had picked up a junior ranger booklet on the way in yesterday, but we had already convinced her that it was best not to participate this time and she had thrown it away.  Like Bryce Canyon, Zion really requires a lot to become a junior ranger.  Also, the older you are, the more activities you must complete.  As a 10 year old, Morgan was required to complete 12 activities including attending a Ranger Program and answering questions about each shuttle stop.  Honestly, I am on the fence about the whole junior ranger program after this trip.  I love that it gets the kids involved in the park and is a great opportunity to experience it in different ways and learn a lot, but some of these booklets have so much busy work and can often require the entire family to work their whole schedule around completing these activities.  I feel like some of them actually detract from experiencing the park rather than enhancing the experience.  We only had one day here and we didn't want to spend the whole time working on junior ranger.  BUT, once I saw the line for the shuttle I told Morgan that she could grab another book if she wanted to try to complete most of the activities while we waited.  She did and she worked really hard and completed most of the book while we were in line.

One hour and 15 minutes after arriving at the hotel shuttle stop, we finally got on the park shuttle bus!

We got off the bus at Zion Lodge.  You can actually a rent a room here and stay inside the park if you book early and have a lot of money.  There is a giant cottonwood tree on the lawn of the Zion Lodge.  If you look close, you'll notice that Caleb is standing at the base of the tree.

Zion Lodge is the starting point for our first hike of the day - the Emerald Pools Trail.

We got started and soon reached the lower pool.  The trail up to this point is paved and fairly level.  It ends at the lower pool with a beautiful waterfall.

We decided to continue on the trail, which soon became steeper and sandier.

When we reached the middle pool, we were hot and the cold water felt great.  We rinsed our feet in the little stream and got our cooling rags wet.

We were still feeling good, though, so we decided to go all the way to the Upper Emerald Pool.  This portion was much steeper and involved a lot of climbing up piles of rocks and walking in loose sand.

Morgan and I stopped for a minute to catch our breath and admire the view.  As we looked up at the canyon rim, I told her that we were going all the way to the top.  Her eyes got very large before I told her I was kidding.

When we finally arrived at the upper pool, it was very crowded with people enjoying the cool shade and ice cold water.  We splashed around and had a snack before heading back down.

A view of the Virgin River winding through Zion Canyon.

After passing the middle pool and enjoying the cool water again, we switched over to the Kayenta trail for the rest of our descent.

The Kayenta trail ends at the Grotto shuttle stop, where we boarded the shuttle and headed all the way to the last stop deep in the canyon.  From here, we started on the Riverside Walk trail.  This is a fairly level, paved trail that follows along the Virgin River.  We began on the trail just before noon and had plans to turn around at 12:30 wherever we were.  There was a ranger program back at Zion Lodge at 1:00 and we needed to be there for at least some of it for Morgan to complete her book.  I was really wanting to get all the way to the end of the 1.1 mile trail in this time, but it meant that we turned the Riverside Walk into more of a Riverside Speedwalk.

A hanging garden growing out of the side of the canyon.

The reason I was in such a hurry to get to the end of the trail is because that is the point where another trail called The Narrows begins.  The Narrows is a very popular hike in Zion for the adventurous travelers.  It involves walking in the cold river for many miles as the canyon closes in around you.  Some points could have waist deep water and can be very dark even in the middle of the day because the canyon is so deep and narrow that it blocks the sun.  They rent out special waterproof boots to wear when hiking the Narrows and we had seen many people wearing or carrying these special boots.  This hike is not for everyone and is certainly not something we could attempt with our young children, but I really wanted to see it for myself.  My cousins Steve and Stephanie recently hiked the Narrows after completing a half marathon through Zion.  Wow!

We got to the end of the "walk" with a few minutes to splash in the cold river before we had to head back to the shuttle.  We could have definitely spent a lot more time here if we had it.

We arrived at the shuttle stop just as a shuttle was about to pull out so we hopped right on.  Since our long wait this morning, we haven't had to wait in line for any other shuttles.  Shortly after 1:00, we were seated on the Zion Lodge lawn listening to the ranger read a story book.  We pulled out our lunches and enjoyed the cool shade while eating and listening to the ranger.

Morgan got her book signed by the ranger and we moved on to more exciting things - shopping and ice cream!  Zion Lodge has a great gift shop and we found lots of treasures.  We had used the promise of ice cream as a motivation during hiking today so we had to deliver.  We took it back out to the lawn, which was much more crowded than it had been when we began our hike here this morning!

We could have spent many more days here in Zion, but we'll have to save it for another trip.  We still have to drive several more hours tonight to our hotel in Page, AZ so we headed back to the visitor center.  Morgan had completed the junior ranger book so she had to turn it in.  Way to go, Morgan!  She definitely earned this badge!

Another wooden badge!  Is this a new trend?

We hopped back on the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway on our way to Arizona.  It's a very winding road!

We made it to our fifth and final state of the trip.  Also the tiniest state welcome sign.

The only room left in our hotel tonight was a handicap accessible room so that is where we stayed.  It was a huge room!

Rodney and the kids headed down to the pool while I went to the WalMart across the street.  When we were all cleaned up, we went out to dinner at Strombolli's.  We ate here on our vacation 2 years ago and really enjoyed it.  Rodney and I shared the strombolli.  Delicious!