Out here you have to make sure you get gas at every opportunity or you might run out and have a very long walk to the next gas station. Not far into our two and a half hour journey, we came to a stop in the road.
There were several cars in front of us and we just sat for 35 minutes before we found out what was going on.
We were the ninth car in line, but I could see car parked a mile behind us.
I found out from the car behind us that there was a wide load coming through Antelope Pass, so we had to wait until it got through.
Once the large truck passed by, we finally got moving again.
We went through Antelope Pass, which I saw would be difficult for a large vehicle to get through.
The road winded down and we turned onto the Vermilion Cliffs Scenic Highway.
 |
| Navajo Bridge |
The road goes by the Vermilion Cliffs and by Marble Canyon.
We went across the Navajo bridge and pulled over for pictures.
The bridges over the canyon with the cliffs in the background was awesome.
We continued our drive until we came to a place called Cliff Dwellers (still by the cliffs).
There was a place on the side of the road where you could see where people lived under balanced rocks and had just built small walls on the side.
 |
| Cliff Dwellers (crazy lady) |
I thought it was really neat that these ruins were here until I found out they weren’t ruins.
Apparently some lady broke down in 1927 and had to spend the night under the rocks.
She fell in love with them so she bought the property and started building small shelters under the rock.
So what I thought was awesome Native American ruins was actually just the home of a crazy lady 80 years ago.
 |
| Kaibab National Forest |
Shortly after, we headed into the Kaibab National Forest.
It was nice to see green again, but it still felt dry and dead.
I can see how forest fires can happen so easily out here.
In fact, not too long into the forest, we hit a large spot that had experienced a fire.
It was actually pretty sad to see dead trees for acres and acres and acres.
I sat in the backseat after we left horseshoe because I was planning getting a little work done.
 |
| Forest Fire Destruction |
Because we stop every 20 minutes and there’s so much to see, I didn’t get anything done.
It’s too hard with getting in and out of the car.
We finally arrived at the park and hiked down to Bright Angel point.
This was the scariest hike of the day because the paths were narrow and sometimes dropped off on both sides.
When other people were coming, I had to just bear not walking in the middle.
 |
| Bride Angel |
The park was pretty full with tourists, so that didn’t make my fear of heights any better.
The Grand Canyon was beautiful.
It was hard to see down to the bottom from where we were standing.
I didn’t try to lean over and look.
While we were at the point trying to take pictures, a very large group of Japanese tourists came down and totally crowded us out.
 |
| Imperial Point |
They were also just yelling the entire time.
I understand parks being busy and everyone taking turns, but this group was just loud and obnoxious.
After we were tired of having our eardrums abused, we hiked back up to the car.
We stopped in the gift shop for our magnet (Lee and I buy magnets on all our vacations when we remember) and then we headed to our next overlook.
 |
| Imperial Point |
We drove over three miles out to Imperial Point and had our lunch at the picnic tables.
The changing elevation everyday messes me up.
We go from hot and sweating to freezing cold multiple times a day.
We froze while we ate and just as we were finishing and getting ready to go view Imperial Point, the tour bus with all the loud tourists showed up.
 |
| Cape Royal |
We were not excited about that, so we quickly packed our stuff and beat them to the point.
This point was We took our time taking the pictures we wanted because they of course poured down to the point and just started yelling to each other for no reason.
Everyone else at the point spoke in a normal voice, but this entire group just yelled.
 |
| Cape Royal |
Once we were completely done taking pictures, we gave up our spot in the front and headed to our final destination in the Grand Canyon – Cape Royal. It was another 15 miles to Cape Royal, but we made it there in good time. I am positive that our views got progressively better. Cape Royal had a place called Angel’s Window that had a wonderful view.
It didn't have classy people on top of it though. We were taking pictures and this one lady next to us was talking to her friends about hiking and camping. She said that she always tells everyone to go to the bathroom on the trail because if you go off the trail everyone picks the same tree or bush and it just becomes a bathroom. So she tells everyone to go on the trail because no one else does it and it's cleaner. Gross! So if you are ever hiking or camping, watch your step, apparently people are nasty and dumb. Further down we reached the actual spot of Cape Royal. It looked like the Grand Canyon you see in movies. It was so vast and expansive. It was nice to just sit and take in the beauty of my surroundings without loud tourists ruining it. Once we were done at the Grand Canyon, we headed to our hotel in Bryce, Utah. We stopped in Kanab for gas and Subway to break up the 3 hour drive. We finally arrived at our hotel at 9:15pm. It was a very strange hotel, it had several lodges. We are in the Antelope Lodge. We have a family suite - two bedrooms and one bathroom. That should be fun getting ready in the morning. Oh well, I will definitely be ready to crash in a few minutes.
0 comments:
Post a Comment