Day 10: Oversized
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Today's Adventure: Bluff, Page, Kanab, Escalante (all in UT except Page, AZ)
As of Sunday night, we had not yet secured a tour for Antelope Canyon. We were also unsure if we could get to a tour in time, or if there would be space for us. We had also originally planned to take an unpaved road through Grand Staircase Escalante NP (Cottonwood Wash).
Monday morning started in Bluff. First thing we did was to throw nearly the entire day's plan out the window and start new. It was still a tight day, and we knew we would be making decisions on each stop as we got to it. The first stop was a park with viewing of the goosenecks of the San Juan River. It was very cool. We hiked around in totally in appropriate hiking gear (flip flops) and would have done more if we had the correct shoes.
From here we headed south to Monument Valley. We opted for the self-guided driving tour of which we only did half. We bored of the area very quickly. The monuments are impressive, but we had enough pictures and didn't feel the need to get a billion just from different angles.
Leaving here was the first of nearly half a dozen times we had to contend with cows in the road. We drove through Page and over Glen Canyon Dam - passing Antelope Canyon without further attempting to get a tour. We decided we could easily reach this from Vegas at a later date, and at a better time of day. It's not a very nice area - right next door to the huge Navajo Power Plant. I'm sure inside the canyon is a whole other world though.
From Page we headed to Kanab, UT. For the second time, we saw an "oversized load" caravan. They were transporting yet another huge dump truck (bed? basket?) - whatever they have on the back. It was at least 2 semi-trucks wide as it wobbled and barely balanced on the back of one. We were permitted by the highway patrol to pass them just after Page. However, after grabbing lunch in Kanab we saw the lead car again and bolted out in front of it. We were not getting stuck again. I'm sure it's fine to not only turn right on red in that town, but to do so around a highway patrol truck who is about to block you it seems. I'm not sure why he'd want to do that, as we'd get squashed if we didn't go.
We went to Zion NP once we left Kanab. We didn't have long there so we took the shuttle up to the end of the Narrows and walked around a bit. Donnell forgot his water shoes in the car somehow so only I played in the water. Glad we didn't intend to hike it; the water was extremely cold, and I didn't have any neoprene.
We had intended to go to Bryce for sunset, but we were pretty sure we wouldn't make it. Looking back we could have, but that's okay. We may or may not backtrack to it. We had a difficult time finding our inn - it was dark and not well marked, but we did find it and it's very nice.
Now it's time for breakfast and today's adventures along UT 12. I hope to get another sampling of images up tonight or the next day. I'm not sure who all is still (or was) reading this regularly - let us know via comment (or email) if you want to recieve the images.
We're officially headed home now. We reached the most western point of our trip (Zion) yesterday.Today's Highlights: Goosenecks of the San Juan; Monument Valley; Zion & Virgin River; Red Canyon UT12; Esca-Latte Cafe still open at 9pm;
posted by Shannon @ 12.9.06,
