Page, Arizona - Glen Canyon National Recreation Area/Wahweap RV Campground 8/09 - 8/15 2020 Travel Tour

 From: casarollnotes.blogspot.com 
Tim and Linda Bunyan

We leave behind Mexican Hat, Utah, and the Navaho Indian Reservation, to drive through along the border of Utah and Arizona within the 26,000 square miles of the world-recognized Monument Valley in the Navaho Tribal Park, Arizona.  

The Navaho Indian Headquarters through Monument Valley.

Majestic Monument Valley as a backdrop.  The location filmed in the movie "Forrest Gump" where actor Tom Hanks turned around to finish his ultra-ultra marathon of more than 15,000 miles (1994 movie).

A place to walk in beauty.

Indians do live here as they like with space for their personal livestock and peace and quiet in beautiful, untouched, protected, and preserved surroundings 

in the home grounds Navaho Tribal Park.

We reach Page, Arizona.  As the Navaho Nation, Page is 'covid-closed'.  Few restaurants are open with outdoor seating only.  The hotels and motels very low business evidenced by the bare parking lots.

There is an indication of electricity being created and transmitted

Glen Canyon Dam: 1 mile

First view of Lake Powell!  This reservoir on the Colorado River in Utah and Arizona gets visited by about two million people every year.  We are here to playboat!!!!  (This covid-avoidance Travel Tour has a positive outcome in that the crowds are non-existent.)

Lake Powell is named for John Wesley Powell, who in 1869 led the first expedition to traverse Colorado's Grand Canyon by boat.

We feel welcome and know this place is just for us.  We are together in our RV houses 

at the Wahweap RV Campground.

When the Glen Canyon dam was built, it took 17 years to fill the 2,000 miles of shoreline to this incredible recreation area!

Tim and I settle in and immediately turn on the a/c; we are in boating weather........all week!

Mike&Sherry has some shade along with a/c on too!

Ron&Fran ready to boat play with a/c on too!

This area is suited to ensure visitors have access to the lake!  Also very clean as can be with this garbage vehicle located for convenience.

I feel great in this "Making America Great Again" sun hat!

We have arrived and Mike&Sherry has arranged for a day boat rental for all of us.  Ron and Mike have been here to Lake Powell many times and know how to go about getting to the boat in the early morning.  They have instructions and signed up so we are all ready to go.  We find this saved us at least an hour in line.  

It is Tim's birthday and we celebrate it all week!

The sunset hour is the most beautiful and tranquil.  The sun has relented for another day and we enjoy getting together in the evenings.

Tim's birthday dinner with Mike&Sherry bbq-ing and Frannie&Ron with birthday cake and candles!

The boys are glad to be in familiar territory and nearby is Lake Powell for our pleasure.

Ron&Fran

Mike&Sherry tending to bbq ribs for dinner!

Frannie lights Tim's birthday candles and Tim coming up with a wish; 

what can be better than this?

READING: This Travel Tour 2020, we came for the Rock Stars and stayed for the Sky Stars.  Play at day and found comfort at night only below the planets, meteors, airplanes, satellites, and shooting stars.

It is time to do what we all came to do!  

Let's Go Boating!

Mike is well in command as Captain of our ship.  It is a high-performance patio boat.

Ron has the map of Lake Powell.

We enter the spectacular Antelope Canyon

We are so happy to be on the water!  At nearly 100 degrees, the movement through the water and the air feels comforting.

Nice and relaxed.  Lake Powell has many visitors but the lake is so large it never appears crowded.  All on the water are free to go into the canyon at their pace.

The reflection of the cliffs upon the water is spectacular!

It is so beautiful and peaceful and we are all happy!

Here is Sherry relaxing on the boat ride

The reflection of the cliffs upon the water is nature's beauty.  One we want to view and not disturb.

Mike&Sherry taking the lead on this boat ride.  Subway sandwiches for every one kept nicely in the ice chest they bought .......with ice and water!  Gee, we are spoiled and enjoying!

The towering cliffs of sandstone.

Mike is taking a break as Tim drives.

We locate all the necessities!

Other boaters in different kinds of boats.  Lake Powell is our pleasure.

By then end of the day, we felt we had had plenty of fun on the water and the afternoon wind (which Rob Connelly had warned) did come up so Mike and Tim are holding on to their hats!  As soon as we reached the marina, the wind was still not detrimental.

Castle Rock Cut is a popular short cut route on Lake Powell that allows boaters at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area to shorten the trip between the major Wahweap Marina and destinations uplake by a distance of 12 miles.  Mike and Ron knew this route and the lake water level was up so the Antelope Canyon was ours for the day!

At the end of the day, we are a happy boating group!!!

The next morning Ron&Fran delights us with a bloody mary bar for brunch.  This is our final stop with Mike&Sherry and Ron&Fran.  It has been a wonderful 2020 Travel Tour.  

This has been a Travel Tour we all got to do together!

We began this 2020 "Rock Stars" and (covid-avoidance) Travel Tour at Dead Horse Point in Moab, Utah: 6/27/2020.   It is now 8/13/2020 and time to go home.

Forrest Gump had run for 3 years, 2 months, 14 days, and 16 hours and turned around just up the road from here in Monument Valley.

  As Forest Gump said at the end of his running:

 "I'm pretty tired....I think I'll go home now"

 Goodbye Mike&Sherry and Ron&Fran,

 Happy Trails!

Flowers from Frannie.

Tim and I stay at Lake Powell and find the Carl Hayden Visitor Center located at Glen Canyon Dam.  It is temporarily covid-closed.  

Electricity transmission tower in the background.  Tim and I walked about the grounds.

The dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam on the Colorado River in northern Arizona.  It is a 710-foot high built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation from 1956-1966 and forms Lake Powell, one of the largest man-made reservoirs in the U.S.

The Glen Canyon Dam bridge with a height of 700 feet crosses the Colorado River.  The bridge was a necessary component in the construction of the massive Glen Canyon Dam.  With Page located on the south side of the river, the bridge made it easy to transport men and materials to the more remote north side.

When flowing water turns the blades in a turbine, the energy form is changed to mechanical energy.  The turbine turns a generator rotor which then converts the mechanical energy into electricity.

Glen Canyon Powerplant has eight electric generators that require about 4,000 cubic feet per second of water flow.  With all eight generators operating at full output, about 15 million gallons of water passes through the powerplant each minute.

This electrical supplies the needs of about 5.8 million customers and is marketed by the Western Area Power Administration.  The electricity is sold to municipalities, rural electric cooperatives, Native American tribes, and governmental agencies in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Nebraska.

We noticed at the local fuel station, pickup trucks lined up at the Water Dispenser!  Large water barrels (in the bed on their trucks) are filled by using a large hose into the water barrel.  They return to their homes with thier water supply!

Tim and I are on the road to visit one of the "Rock Stars" of our Travel Tour: 

 The Grand Canyon-North Rim. 

 Through the past years, we have talked and dreamed of going to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and now, this 2020 Travel Tour, the plan is well set and we are excited to continue our 2020 Travel Tour.