Grand Canyon and Lake Powell

Hello all -- our Internet connection is sure to disappear at any moment so, before I update you on our trip, I want to be sure to thank everyone for all the notes and comments you have been sending. Though we haven't responded, we HAVE seriously appreciated. Thanks for being out there.

Okay, so, Grand Canyon.  Truthfully, I don't have a ton to say about GC.  The weather gods took a well-earned day off and left us with rain and clouds at this wonder-of-the-world so we did sadly little in terms of sightseeing or hiking. I, for one, am wistful about it. People had cautioned that the GC might not seem 'all that' after some of what we saw in Yellowstone but, even with our limited view, I found it to be all that and more. The colors and cliffs were similar to other places we have visited, but the scale of the canyon was like nothing else I have ever seen. I would definitely like to go back some day and, if I do, I think I would book a rafting trip there to get the view from the bottom as well as from the top.  It's HUGE!!  One thing that was nice for us was that, what we did see, we saw from the North Rim, which is both higher and less crowded than the South Rim of the canyon. When we stopped at the scenic turn-out for the highest point anywhere in the Canyon, we were the only people there.  I had expected a lot of things at Grand Canyon, but solitude was NOT one of them!

After Grand Canyon we went to Lake Powell. This was where we finally hit the HOT part of our trip -- We were very glad to be at a lake!  Lake Powell was created when the Glen Canyon Dam was constructed to tame the Colorado River. It is an amazing convergence of man-made ingenuity and nature and the area is really lovely.  The water is a beautiful, clear, green-blue color and is surrounded by dramatic clay-colored cliffs and rocks. The rocks look big, but it isn't until you go and stand near one that you realize they are enormous. (As a side note, I really fear our whole sense of scale is going to be disrupted by this trip. The size of absolutely everything we are seeing is so vast compared to the East, I can't imagine what it will feel like to be home.  On the other hand, we passed one Wyoming "town" with an official population of 10. And it will be tough to drive 40mph again, too, but that's another story...)

For the night, we stayed at a nice, beachy campground right on the lake with lovely views.  For the day, we rented a 19 foot motor boat and tooled around the various canyons and crevices in the lake exploring, swimming, and playing. We had PERFECT weather (welcome back, Weather Gods) and I think it was the kids' favorite day.  While Theo and I could sightsee forever, the girls clearly prefer doing to seeing, especially when the doing involves water.  They loved the boat and the swimming, and tried to lobby us to rent a houseboat with a cool slide and stay on the lake for the rest of the trip.  We didn't cave, but we were tempted :-)

From Lake Powell, we had a long drive up to where we are now: Moab, UT.  We made the drive even longer by "swinging by" the four corners on our way. It was a fun little stop but we were glad to finally arrive at our motel last night. Our plan is to spend the next 2 days camping and exploring in our last 2 National Parks, Canyonlands and Arches, but a few of the kids seem to have caught a bug and I'm not sure what the group will be up to.  This is our last stop before we fly home, so hopefully we will get to do something.

One more blog post coming your way at most. Either way, we fly home on Tuesday...