What Now

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: WILD, WILD WEST EDITION VOLUME 2

May 11, 2011

Go West, Young Man! (Er...youngish woman)

I don't see how anyone can get used to living in Springdale. It's so gorgeous, I'd spend all my time looking out of the window! I suppose you can get used to anything, though.
After breakfast, we got back on the road and headed to Page, Arizona.

On the way out of town, we stopped at the Human History museum in Zion to get some pictures of the park since the sun was out today. There is literally no place you can look where the scenery isn't beautiful. It doesn't even look real, it's so pretty.  I bet there are places in heaven that look like this. I wish I could show it off to everyone I know. I actually tried, but cell phone signals are not so great out here.  Hopefully someone got the picture I took!  :)

Our next stop was the Coral Pink Sand Dunes, which was kind of an "on the fly" trip. After the ginger at the gate got kind of nasty with Mr. Lee for not knowing how to get inside of the park, we made it to the dunes and they were so cool! They popped up out of nowhere. You're driving along, looking at trees and big rocks and then BAM, you're looking at pinkish-orange sand dunes! Awesome. I walked down onto them and promptly almost fell down, of course. I managed to stay on my feet, and somehow I got a mouthful of sand.  I determined that the sand dunes didn't like me, so I went back to the parking lot. It was cold out there, too.

I dozed off and on when we got back on the road, so I didn't see an awful lot until we got into Kanab, Utah. We ate lunch at a pretty fair Mexican restaurant (a local favorite) and did a little shopping. We went to a place where there were some absolutely gorgeous silver and turquoise jewelry that I wish I could have bought, but it was antique and cost more than I could afford! Boo.  We drove out of Kanab towards our next stop, and it started raining again. Apparently, we brought rain to the desert. Usually, we only take rain when we travel east, so, go figure. It had also been hailing hard enough to make the ground look covered in snow in some places. While I was very glad it wasn't anywhere near as hot as the last time we were here, I was a little surprised that it would be so cold!

There is one thing that kind of sucks about traveling out here, and that's the complete lack of knowing what time it is. The time zones change without warning, and then it depends on whether you are on or off the Navajo reservation. As of now, we might as well say we are on Western Howdy Doody Time.

We soon drove out of the rain and into beautiful sunshine as we entered Glens Canyon.

 It was so beautiful! I wish there hadn't been buildings out there to get in the way of my pictures, but oh well. It was also warm, so I got out and walked around a bit. Mr. Lee found a flowering cactus, and when I knelt down to take a picture, I don't know if I fell or just forgot that cacti were spiny, but my hand went right onto it. Ouch! I spent the next few minutes plucking spines from my fingers.

Stupid, stabby cactus!

Our next stop was in Page, Arizona, where most of the things we had planned kind of fell through. The shop where we usually get special pumpkin cookies had closed (boo!), the slot canyons were closed, and (and I hate to admit this) I chickened out of climbing up to see the horseshoe bend. Mr. Lee couldn't make the climb because he'd twisted his knee, and Steve didn't want to see it, so there wasn't anyone who could shame me into going. Shut up! There were no guard rails! It was 1000 feet to the river below, and you have to go right to the edge to see it. Also, and I know this isn't fair, but I have an irrational fear that Steve is going to push me off of a cliff. I've been having nightmares.

We finally just went to the hotel to check in, and we all fell asleep. I think we're all turning into old people. I woke up when Glee came on and spent an hour trying to explain to Steve and Mr. Lee what was going on and who everyone was. Fun, that. Later, we went out to pick up a quick dinner and spent the rest of the evening sitting around. I didn't mind, though. We had a lot of stuff planned for the next day.