Antelope Canyon

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Wednesday October 19 - Today we stopped again at Walmart to get a toy that Jeroen's nephew wanted. From there, we headed to Lower Antelope Canyon, which is just outside of Page. It's on tribal land, and we had to go with a tour to view it. At first, I was annoyed by how many people there were. And this was not high season, and supposedly the less popular of the canyons, with Upper Antelope Canyon being the first. We chose this one because less people do it, and it was cheaper. Upper Antelope Canyon gets these incredibly beams of light that you can photograph, but not in October.

That said, it was a totally amazing experience. We went with Ken's tours - there was one other company - and we were not disappointed. Despite the enormous number of people initially, it did thin out as we walked through the canyon. And though it was supposed to take an hour, we were there for about two hours, which was even better. It is just so incredibly photogenic and beautiful. I had read that the tour guides can help you to adjust your camera settings to get the best pictures, and our guide did exactly that. His name was Cruise, and he was great. Young and energetic, he loved showing you the best angles and helping with your pictures. He was even teaching people with iphones how to get cool shots that I cannot get with my camera. First time I've wished for a smart phone. He was really great. At the end he showed us a photo of him with Hugh Jackman, who had been on the tour two days before us. We had considered doing the other canyon as well, but we were well satisfied with what we saw in the lower canyon. It was great.

For lunch we had Taco Bell, and in the afternoon, I sent my election ballot away (I voted!), and we drove to nearby Lake Powell, the second largest man-made lake in the states, if I'm not mistaken. We drove only a few miles, but we were already back in Utah when we got to our destination, Lone Rock beach. By then it was a bit late in the day, and too cool out for swimming. But we walked down to the water to take some pictures and ended up talking to a lovely retired couple as we walked into their camp site. While chatting, a Chinese guy came up and asked for help digging his convertible out of the sand, where it had gotten stuck as they drove through. The campers had a shovel and we dug and pushed and ended up getting the car out of the sand. It was quite a nice team effort. We stopped on the way back to town at a lookout and watched part of the sunset, but we wanted to get back to watch the third debate, as it started at 6pm.

Dinner was some chips and a banana, as we were tired and still not so hungry after tacos earlier.

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