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Published: April 19th 2010
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From the Grand Canyon we had to make a detour to Flagstaff to drop off Duncan at the airport. Flagstaff's airport isn't the worlds largest airport and on the way in I only saw planes with propellers. After making sure we had the right airport on the right day we said our farewells to Duncan and wished him well on his marathon trip back to Durban whilst we headed off to Monument Valley.
Monument Valley is situated on a Navajo Reservation and the closer you get the more you feel like you are in the middle of an old western movie. The landscape is both scenic and barren at the same time. A load of westerns have been filmed out in this part of the world and it is easy to see why. Seeing Monument Valley was something I had really been looking forward to on this trip. To me it is an iconic American image and represents the West. We arrived into Monument Valley and I wasn't disappointed. We saw the massive columns of rock protruding out of the earth amidst the seemingly barren and desolate landscape. There was an option of driving around the park and getting up
close to the monuments but we decided to give it a pass as I wasn't sure our car would make it on the dirt road. We were meant to spend the night there but had arrived early enough to give us the option of moving on to our next destination if we wanted. As we had already seen everything we had wanted and the fact that the campsite seemed to be a spot in sand with no facilities to speak of it was a no brainer and so we carried on to Lake Powell.
Lake Powell is a man made lake created by the Glen Canyon Dam. It straddles Arizona and Utah. We were staying in a more established campsite (at least it had hot water and showers). The lake is a national recreation area so there are alot of boats all over the place. I think it was fairly quiet whilst we were there given the time of year and the relatively chilly water. The weather was pleasant, compared to the Grand Canyon, and we were able to spend some time lying by the lakes edge and even managed to go for a bit of a swim. The
highlight of our time in Lake Powell was a trip we did to the Antelope Slot Canyon. This is a narrow canyon that you can walk through and where the suns rays shine through the gaps in the canyon creating magical and mesmerising tricks of light. We spent about an hour walking through a very crowded canyon (filled with photographers trying to get the perfect shots). It was a wonderful sight to see.
We also took a short walk to a place called Horseshoe Bend. It is a spot in the river where the river doubles back on itself. The overlook is high up on the vertical cliffs above the river and it takes a bit of nerve to get to the edge and take some pictures.
From Lake Powell we went to Zion National Park in Utah. We weren't quite sure what to expect from this park and when we got there we just had enough time to get out tent up before the heavans opened. The clouds had rolled in and unfortunately we weren't able to see much of the parks sights as they consisted mostly of cliffs and peaks. We were based in the bottom
of the canyon and couldn't see the top of it. We spent the day catching the parks shuttle which goes to all the main sights. I think under different circumstances we would have really been impressed with the park but we only had 1 day there and I don't think we saw it in the best light.
Next we carry on through Utah and move to Bryce Canyon National Park.
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Duncan
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Great photo's and living on the edge Billy, hope the drop was not too bad. Believe it or not i flew on one of those propeller planes, awful i hated it!