Anniversary Trip: Part 1

Nate and I celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary this year. On the evening of the fifth, I took Nate out to Color Me Mine to paint a serving platter, since the traditional 8th year anniversary gift is pottery. We have never had a basic, every day, large serving platter. We did get a really fun Halloween platter one year, but it always seems odd to pull that out unless it is October.


The week following our anniversary, Nate and I went on a trip together while my parents watched Austin. We drove down to Page, Arizona on Wednesday, May 13. On our way down, we had planned to hike to the Wahweap Hoodoos in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. However, after stopping at the nearby BLM visitor's center, we learned that the road to the trail we planned to use was now closed and inaccessible. The other trail option to the hoodoos was about four times longer, and we didn't have time for that. Instead we ended up doing a very short hike to The Toadstools. We were happy to find that the desert was very pretty at this time of year, with all sorts of wild flowers in bloom from white stemmed evening primroses, to lupines and yucca plants.

Here are some of the "toadstools"

After our short hike, we stopped by a beautiful view point. We arrived at an ideal viewing time. The light was soft and inviting, turning the scene it illuminated into a stunning pastel toned landscape.

From there we continued to our place in Page and bought some things to make dinner at a local store.

Thursday didn't go at all as we had planned. The main purpose of our trip to Page had been to see Antelope Canyon, which can only be viewed on a tour. We had reserved tickets to see Upper Antelope Canyon during the time slot when the lighting in the canyon would be at its prime. We had a relaxed morning with a waffle breakfast and arrived at the tour place at 10:00. We had been concerned at the rain that had hit the area that morning, and our fears were confirmed since the tour was canceled due to the flash flood danger. Actually, while we were at the tour place, the Navajo Nation called to re-open, then re-close the canyon all within a few minutes. We called the place we had booked an afternoon tour of Lower Antelope Canyon and were informed that that canyon would also be closed for the day. We re-scheduled our tour of the upper canyon for the next morning and hoped for the best before heading to the town's visitor center as we tried to re-schedule our day.

After waiting in line for quite awhile and not getting much information from either the visitor's center or from a phone call to the Navajo Nation, we decided to drive out to the reservation and see if we would be able to get a backcountry permit to hike Upper Water Holes Canyon. It turned out that there was no flash flood warnings for that slot canyon, so we spent of good chunk of the remainder of our day there.

This hike turned out to be a real highlight of our trip. After descending into the canyon, we found that it quickly opened up and the path was pretty wide for a good way.

This was a small narrow side slot canyon we found

But as we continued, the canyon walls drew closer together and became increasingly interesting. The wash that we walked on weaved in, out, and around the wavy sandstone walls. These narrow undulating rock forms seemed to demand that visitors play a game of peek-a-boo while wandering through the windy sand filled depths of the canyon.

 At the end of this narrow section, we found a ladder to climb up. After ascending the ladder, the canyon opened up again. We walked to the power lines (which is as far hikers are permited to go), before heading back.

Looking back down toward the ladder

We were quite hungry by then. It was late afternoon, and we hadn't taken lunch with us. But we still stopped by Horseshoe Bend before returning to our place to eat.

After "lunch," we didn't really have time to go see anything else that day. So, instead we ended up seeing Avengers: Age of Ultron at the local theater. That was actually the only movie playing there, so it is good we were interested in seeing it.