Evenin' Campers!
It's Silver Cliche' with you again tonight. This time for the second
(and final) night from theWahweap RV Resort (and campground) on the
shores of beautiful Lake Powell, AZ.
I was up before
the chickens this morning and even before the fishermen it turns out.
There is something about being on the eastern edge of a time zone
that does that for you and we are on the eastern edge of Pacific
Daylight Time. That means it got dark before 8:00 last night, it felt
late at 8:30 and the sun lit the sky before 5:30 this morning. I qualify as an early riser by age (not by nature), I was up with the sun. And when I wake up
with the sun in the Airstream I grab the Canon and head out to start
shooting. I hope if there is every an intruder or a mountain lion or
something trying to get into the Airstream and I yell “HONEY, PASS ME THE
CANNON” to Mrs. C' that she doesn't think I said “Canon” and
instead she grabs the Remington from the wardrobe. I think we ought to
have a drill to practice that in a calm moment.
Anyway, the sun that
woke me lasted shortly less time than it took me to make coffee and put
my pants on (I guess I could have saved a few seconds by skipping
that step and maybe gotten you a sunrise pic, but coffee was not
negotiable). I was off to the (as yet lifeless) fisherman's boat launch on the lake shore which was a 10 minute walk.
By the time I got there it was overcast. If you don't believe me that
sunrise pics without the sun are bland, let me share one with you:
There now, that's
enough to make you say “I don't know why they spent four days in
Louisiana to get to a place that looks like that.”. You'd be right.
So, I trekked back up the hill with the knowledge that the best part
of that photo safari was the coffee. I'd do it
again for that alone. I did see a few critters I had not seen before, evidently they are scared off by the sound of fishermen lying about their catch. Here's one that we don't see in the east, at least not the long-eared "Jack" variety"
I got back “home” and Mrs. C' was up
enjoying her coffee with the dogs watching for my return. We had
breakfast. The pita toast was good… but we couldn't recreate
yesterday's experience. Maybe because the bread was a day older,
maybe because we used an honest-to-goodness toaster, maybe because
we're under 4,000 feet elevation versus over 7,000 and the thicker
air interferes with the body's toast-handling cycle. I don't know. It
was great, but nobody from an adjacent camping spot came over to say
“I'll have what you're having for breakfast”.
There is a signature
smell that hits a large campground around 7:00… frying bacon. I
just thought I'd mention that. I don't know who drew the short straw
and had the assignment to make this morning fragrant, it wasn't us, but they took
the assignment seriously.
So, we hung out for
the morning. Played computer games, reviewed the upcoming weather and
generally enjoyed having “full hookups” that work. For those of
you not versed in Rv-ing, The food chain of camping luxury goes from
“boondocking” (parking in the middle of nowhere with absolutely
no services and a round in the chamber with two backups in the
magazine); “dry camping” (parking in a place designated for
camping but with no support services such as plug-in power or a water
spigot. We were dry camping the two nights prior to getting here);
“Electric” (just like it sounds… you can plug into the
campground's 120 Volt system to use your coffee pot, hair dryer, TV,
etc. and charge the RV's batteries); “Electric and water” (same
as above plus a water spigot to run a white, drinking-water-rated
hose from the spigot to your RV); “Full hookups” (same as above
plus a sewer connection at the campsite so you don't have to stop at
the “dump station” on the way out). I would add an even higher
category called “Full hookups that work” since many of the full
hookup sites we've been to have some defect such as the sewer opening
being uphill from the trailer's waste port. There are many things
that run uphill, but one that does not is… oh, let me get back to
the story. Here at Wahweap we have “Full hookups that work”. With
this setup we can attach a "stinky slinky" (the RV-er's flexible sewer hose), leave the gray water tank drain valve open, have a water
hose hooked to the trailer and take showers as long as we want, wash
dishes in a full sink of hot water then let it all run down the drain
and generally live like the water pigs we are at home. For the first
time in 3 weeks this morning I took a regular shower and let the
water run continuously. I like “Full hookups that work”. Tomorrow
its back to “Dry camping” and Navy showers.
So after a morning
of being lazy we decided to go explore Page, Arizona with the hope
that the sky would clear for photography later. We locked the dogs in
the unhitched trailer with a full bowl of water, hopped in the trusty
Tundra, and in 15 minutes we were in town getting our now empty
propane tank filled. We carry two 30 pound tanks on the front of the
trailer plus I have two full 20 pounders in the back of the truck
with the circus clowns (read recent posts for that reference) which are
for the generators but can power the trailer's propane system if we
need them to. So far, we've burned 40 pounds of propane of the 120 we
started off with. Today we got 30, so now we are back to 110 and ready to dry camp for a
while.
After propane we
went to lunch at “El Tapatio” for some “Az-Mex”. Ok, I don't
think there is such a thing as “Az-Mex”, but we both ordered the
fajitas. What we got was good in one person's opinion and not so good
for the other. We review restaurants anonymously, so I can't divulge
who had a thumb up and who down. It wasn't “New Mexican” (not
enough “chili”), It wasn't “Tex-Mex” (the beef had a mild red
sauce on it), I don't think it was “Mexican” (Donald Trump won
Arizona… that should tell you something), so I called it “Az-Mex”.
I just did a Google search, I thought I had invented something with
“Az-Mex”. I was wrong. The term is in use for food that is a
blend of two cultures. There is one restaurant in the whole US-of-A
that calls their food “Az-Mex”. It's in Minneapolis. I kid you
not. If you really are trying to kill time (like I am dragging this out to give you a
sense of what it's like for a photographer surrounded by stunning
geography to wait for the sun to come out), check this out:
http://www.saguarompls.com/
Anyway, the sun. It
finally did come out just as we were ready to head back to our
de-luxe campsite at Wahweap and see if the dogs were OK. We decided
to assume they were OK and stopped to take lots of pictures. First, I
got a few of sandstone to show you the texture, variety and (in one
shot below) the transition between red and sand colored stone that
appears all over this region. Note that even the grain of the sandstone layers changes when the color changes. I recall that geology students from college used to take a semester on Lake Powell. Now that I'm here, I can see why. It's a rock laboratory here.
Those pictures were
taken on a short trail from a parking area to a place called “Scenic
View” (literally, it was even on “Scenic View Drive”). I thought
it was scenic there. See if you agree (and check Flickr for the full
sized images if you want to truly appreciate them). The first is the Glen Canyon Dam which impounds the Colorado River and forms Lake Powell. The second is from the same spot as the first, but I turned 90 degrees left and it is the Colorado continuing on its journey to the Grand Canyon and ultimately the Gulf of California. There is a third view on Flickr which is a panorama incorporating both of the above views.
Then we headed back
to the trailer, stopped for more pictures, got back to the trailer,
chilled, fed and walked the dogs the realized the on-and-off sun was
on again and headed up the hill for more landscapes. Every now and
then I stumble on something that is not my forte' (in other words,
not a landscape). This was one of those times. Sometimes I take a pic
that is more artistic (that's my term) or more likely to wind up on a
motivational poster in the break room of a WalMart (so say my
critics). This afternoon presented one of those opportunities. I call
this one “It's all down hill from here” (and the motivational
poster caption would read “Keep going until you reach your goal”):
However, I also got
what I went there for. See if you like this one:
OK, that's it for
tonight. Tomorrow we head to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Two
things: 1.) It's not clear if we will have cell service there so I
may be offline for a few days. And 2.) the weather forecast for the
North Rim is downright lousy. If we get rained out every day I'm
going to write drivel every day to see that you have the experience
of sitting in the rain in a trailer with two dogs near one of the
world's wonders that you spent 10 months planning and four days in
Louisiana to get to but can't see. I'll try to deliver that kind of shared experience. I
can't tell you how many times we've commented to some local about
their weather only to hear “It never does this here” to which I
reply “It does this 100% of the time we're here”.
Stay tuned!
SC'
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