Lone Rock Beach and Upper Antelope Canyon.

We made a mad dash for Page, Arizona after we left Wupatki National Monument because we knew that we would want to catch Horseshoe Bend at dusk. The last time we were there, we were running late as well and ended up catching it at just the right light. Admittedly, this is a place that is hard to get a good photo of. Almost every moment of the day will cast shadows in some part of the canyon and getting enough light to show it at dusk is always a challenge.

When we got there, Marlene was pretty much done hiking for the day with our 2 outings at Sunset Crater and Wupatki. I ended up running out there with Ava to see it one more time.

It takes a fair amount of editing to get the dark photos to come out at all and it is so grand, a camera phone is often not the right tool for the job. But as many of you know, the camera you have one you is the best one so this is what I got.

We stayed the first night in the Walmart parking lot after eating dinner at our mutually favorite fast food joint, Taco Bell. You better believe it.

When we visited here last time, we decided against visiting the very popular Antelope Canyon. The main reason is because you need to hire a Navajo guide as it sits squarely in their land.

That basically means that unless you have a Navajo buddy to take you in there yourself, you will need to go with one of the tours. Which is what we ended up doing.

Since we were here at the low season, we ended up getting a tour with just us. This place is notoriously crowded during the busy season. It is often said that getting a photo of the canyon without people in it during that time is next to impossible.

Well it wasn’t exactly the case for us. We only ran into two other tours when we were there and they were both small groups that were spaced pretty far apart.

Many people choose to come here later in the year when the sun is higher in the sky. At just the right time of the day, the sun rays come through the cracks on the top of the canyon creating amazing displays of light beams.

We didn’t get to see any light beams but I would trade that for an uncrowded visit any time.

It is really hard to describe this place with words so I will just shut up and let you enjoy these photos for a moment.

These are the trucks we rode in on for the tour. Luka was too little and had to ride shotgun in this car seat.

He was not a happy camper as he wanted to ride in the back with the big kids.

Just when we thought we have had enough Junior Ranger badges for the week, we stopped in at the Glen Canyon Dam Visitor Center.

Well, shoot, there are two more badges to earn here.

Glen Canyon and Rainbow Bridge. We can’t honestly say that we deserve the Rainbow Bridge one but the only way to get there is with an 8 hour boat ride and we settled for just learning about it in the booklet.

When we were pulling into the Glen Canyon Visitor Center, we spotted a backpacker walking along the road just past the Glen Canyon Dam. When we were pulling back into Lone Rock, we saw that same guy now walking into the campground. He must have walked for miles to get here so we offered him a ride for the last few yards down to the beach.

His name was Tom and it turns out he is visiting from France and backpacking across America. We invited him to come by our camp for a beer and although our French was horrible and his English was not much better, we managed to have a good time.

We had wanted to stay a few more days in Lone Rock because we had such great luck here last time with the weather.

But this time it was not meant to be. The next day, a serious wind storm came in and basically blew us out of there.

We managed to hitch up in gail forced winds and got the hell out of town. (Last two photos stolen with love from the Works family!)

over and out,
dan