Northern Arizona is so cool. There are so many things to see and do. If you have AT&T as your cell service, however, don’t expect to be able to talk to anyone about it. Few places offer functional wifi either. So, it’s been several days since I could update here.
We left New Mexico and headed to Four Corners Monument. It’s the only place in America where four states meet at one point: Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. It’s also on Navajo land. We spent enough time there to get cool pictures and to walk around the four states.
From there we drove to Page, Arizona and set up camp. Literally. The days were so hot while we were there. And the nights. Hot. I was trying to figure out how to set up a ceiling fan in the tent.
We took a river raft cruise on the Colorado River in Glen Canyon. It starts at the Glen Canyon Dam, goes around Horseshoe Bend and then back. On the way we stopped at a beach where the brave of heart could jump in the water. A cool 48 degrees! The water comes out of the dam from the bottom of Lake Powell, which means it is always cold! When you walk the path above the beach you come to petroglyphs left by ancient Native Americans. So cool!
That evening, after viewing Horseshoe Bend from the Colorado River that morning, we walked a 3/4 mile hike from the highway to see it from the top. Amazingly beautiful. Also, there are no protective barriers at the viewing site. It was crazy to see everyone basically traipsing around a cliff to get pictures of Horseshoe Bend. And we were four of those crazies.
The next morning we went back onto the Navajo Nation property for a tour of the Lower Antelope Canyon. I had seen pictures of this and desperately wanted to see it in person. The guide didn’t give us much information about the formation of the canyon, but I think this is because we were the only English speaking family in the tour. August is the month where Europeans go on vacation, so the American West was full of vacationing Europeans! The guide did, however, know what our camera settings should be.
We left Page, AZ and headed to the Grand Canyon. It’s hard to even comprehend the vastness of the Grand Canyon. My pictures can’t even begin to do it justice. We were going to camp here, but with the impending rain, we decided to stay in a hotel room. After viewing the canyon from several different stopping points in the evening, we hiked into the canyon the next morning. We hiked down to Ooh-Ahh Point, which earns its name.
Thus ended our tour of the canyons. We left the Grand Canyon area and headed to Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam. More on that later!
Not So SAHM
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Not So SAHM 
Looks like an amazing place! Thanks for the post.
Amazing photos! I absolutely love the fact that the guide knew what your settings should be. LOL!
It was so funny – he knew the settings for the iPhone and all other smart phones. For the “real” cameras he advised us to set the white balance to cloudy…I think that was all he said for that one. There was no purple in the canyon, but the settings make the shadows turn purple. I didn’t know that before the tour and was wondering if we were going at the time of day that would allow all those colors. I guess any time of day will do that! 🙂