Arizona-Pueblo's, Painted Desert, and Page, 9 May 2011

Photo 1: Sunset Crater Volcano

Photo 2: Glen Canyon Dam/Lake Powell

Photo 3: Wupatki Pueblo Ruins

We were up early and after a hearty breakfast hit the road for the 200 mile trip to Page. It was really, really windy and a bit cool this morning but the sun was still shining.

A short time after turning onto Hwy 89A, we were on the Navajo Nation Reservation. The whole drive was incredibly beautiful and if I said ‘WOW’ once, I said it a thousand times. It reminds me of driving through the Canadian Rockies, minus the snow of course but there is a vista of some sort at every turn in the road. While it should have only taken 3 hrs to reach Page, a number of stops meant we didn’t get there until 4 pm.

Our first stop was to take the 21-mile loop which has the Sunset Crater Volcano and the Wupatki and Wukoki Pueblo ruins. About 3 miles in to the loop we started to see massive piles of something that looked like big pieces of black asphalt which was the lava flow from the volcano that erupted about 1000 years ago. There were huge cinder dunes for 2 miles or so until we came to the volcano cone itself. It was amazing to see how nature takes back the landscape—there were large aspen and fir trees but it will taken another thousand years, or more, before volcanic evidence is erased.

The pueblo ruins were amazing…I love that kind of stuff. The Wupatki ruin is the largest and was probably a community of single family dwellings with the largest having up to 100 rooms. Built from sandstone slabs, limestone blocks, and chunks of basalt set with a clay-based mortar, the ruins are still there 700 years after the inhabitants left. We were so lucky to see it today as there were very few people in either location which made photo taking much more pleasant. The Wukoki ruin was very large as well and built on top of a huge boulder.

The loop borders on the Painted Desert and some of the landscape is beautiful beyond words. It was interesting to see the low clouds over this area tinted with the pink/red sand blowing off the desert. We’ll spend more time here after we have visited the Page area and some of the National Parks in Southern Utah.

Before we booked in to our hotel, we went to the Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell (remember the Lotto 649 commercial with two guys playing hide-and-seek in the power boat and helicopter—that’s Lake Powell). The lake is a maze of canyons with 100-ft walls and quite a site to see. You can rent a houseboat here for $1000+ a day but we’re not talking your ordinary houseboat! These are luxury boats for the rich and famous. However, kayaks are also popular and I’m told there are canyons that are so narrow, only a kayak can navigate. We are in Page for 2 nights so perhaps a raft trip down the Colorado River is in our future. The advantage of taking these trips is that you can get to see some amazing places only accessible by boat.

Tomorrow is my photo trip to Antelope Canyon. There’s a 30% chance of rain and I’m hoping it holds off until that ends (can you spell ‘flash flood’?). Until next time, love and hugs to all.