Day 2: April 9, 2000
Drive by Bryce, through Grand Staircase National Monument

Today we got a bit of a late start, partly because of the long day of driving and because we'd lost an hour crossing into Utah. That morning we developed a general plan for the day, to drive through dirt roads in Grand Staircase National Monument and wind up in Escalante. (As it turned out, we didn't make it that far, but it worked out well anyway.)

Approaching Bryce on Rt 12

We stopped first at the grocery store to load up on more stuff (seems like we'd accumulated enough crackers and cookies to open our own grocery store by then). Then we started toward Grand Staircase, taking route 14 east then North on 89 and east on 12. (Here's a map of the route we took for the next few days. The red is the drive we took today.) At one point on 14, I saw three deer crossing the road after we drove by, a fairly major road. That was neat. We listened to Harry Potter off and on through the day, getting more and more involved. Hoodoos outside Bryce entrance

Route 12 takes you to the entrance of Bryce, but since we had Libby with us, we couldn't go in. Still, there were some interesting hoodoo formations along 12 as you got close to Bryce, so we stopped to take some shots. Just before Bryce, Walendo took some shots of a dramatic set of orange-red hoodoos. We drove along some more and a little east of the entrance to the park came to a trailhead to a .4 mile hike called Mossy Cave, which seemed like the back side of Bryce.

Rock formations along "Mossy Cave trail"

At first Walendo didn't bring his camera, for some bizarre reason, but that lasted about 10 yards, at which point he saw something he wanted to shoot, so he went back to get it. We spent about an hour there, and Walendo didn't even make it to the end of the trail cuz there was plenty to shoot along the way. There were some dramatic rocks with holes in them against a cobalt blue sky, and I clambered up the hill to get some better shots. It one point, perched on about a 30 degree hill, I took a shot through one of the holes framing some hoodoos on the other side. (Didn't come out that great, oh well.) I took a bunch more from that height, while Walendo tooled away down below. Finally, I traipsed on ahead to see the "Mossy Cave," which was the name of the trail. It wasn't nearly as interesting as the big hoodoos.

Finally we continued on our way. We got to Cannonville and found the road that led us to the dirt road across the Grand Staircase, called Cottonwood Road according to the Internet map but not marked anywhere on the road, as best we could tell. Before the dirt road, I stopped to take a shot of a dilapidated house with interesting buttes in the background, while Walendo made his sandwich. (Also didn't turn out that well.) Finally, we got to the dirt road. It was full of dirt.

Overlook along Cottonwood Road

We stopped at various places along the way to take pictures. After taking shots over a huge expanse of striated rocks, Walendo suggested that we not try to take the second dirt road back up to Escalante (Smokey Mountain Road) because it was getting late and the road was slow.

Grosvenor's Arch

I got a little frustrated because it seemed like we had plenty of daylight, but he was right and it made more sense not to risk it and instead have more time for photos. We decided instead to go to Page that night, just over the border of Arizona. While still on Cottonwood Road, we took the 1 mile detour to Grosvenor's Arch. The Arch was interesting to look at, kind of a double arch, way high up. They had laid a concrete path up to the arch for wheelchair access, which made it seem kind of tame, though. On we went and we came to some amazing red, orange, and white striped rocks and land formations just off the road. It was just the kind of place I love. So we stopped and both took pictures. After that, we drove along a canyon with a dried river bed to the right, but the sun was shining from behind the canyon so we couldn't see it that well. Eventually we left the stream and drove along on the moon, or at least that's what it looked like, just a vast expanse of gray gravel and rocks. Finally, we reached 89 and got back on paved road, southeast into Page.

Striped land formations along Cottonwood Road

We stopped at the Best Western Weston Inn (dog friendly) and got settled in. We looked at the brochures of Antelope Canyon, which has the slot canyons I've wanted to take pictures of for so long. Unfortunately, it looks like it's become a controlled experience where you have to go on a tour and you get only so much time. That seemed much less appealing than what I'd pictured, which was having the freedom to wander around and take my time with pictures. Walendo wondered if we could take a boat out on Lake Powell, something he's wanted to do forever, so we grabbed some brochures and it looked like we could rent a power boat. We decided to stay in Page and see if we could go out on the lake, then go to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, and then go back up to Escalante and Hole in the Rock Road in Grand Staircase. This, as it turned out, had the benefit of allowing us to order the rest of the Harry Potter tapes from Amazon and have them delivered to our hotel, since we'd be staying for a few days.

More striped land

While pondering this idea, we went looking for dinner. But not before checking the local WalMart to see if they had the Harry Potter tapes. No luck. We drove around a bunch and couldn't find a decent looking restaurant. Everything seemed kinda seedy, which is too bad cuz this is the only major town in the area near Lake Powell. Finally, after driving around a bunch we found the place across the street had what looked like a reasonable steak house, called Butterfield Stagecoach Steakhouse. Looks can be deceiving. The receptionist/waiter guy was very friendly, but it tuned out that the steaks were practically raw. The salad bar was a bunch of stale iceberg lettuce, some carrots, and a bunch of macaroni salads, with four kinds of goopy dressing. The corn couldn't even hold a can to the famous niblets. (Walendo: it was the kind of corn that cheap restaurants must buy in 50 gallon drums and start boiling 2 or 3 days ahead of time. By the time you get it, it's just sort of water with yellow chunks in it.) Not exactly my kind of place. I sent my steak back to cook it more, but even then, it was practically raw. I saved two bites of steak for Libby, who was very happy. At the end of the dinner, the waiter chatted with us a bit and recommended that if we went out on the lake the next day, we go to Cathedral Canyon. Sounded like a good tip, so we got that out of it.

After dinner, we tried to go get ice cream at the ice cream store I'd seen, but it was closed. I settled for an ice cream Snickers from the Circle K. When we got back to the hotel, we began the quest to order the Harry Potter tapes from Amazon. For some reason, I couldn't surf through my work dialup, although I could check mail and I could surf inside the company. (Turned out they had changed some things about the firewall and I needed to change some settings on the browser, but I didn't know that then.) Walendo tried using Lynx (which he downloaded) but we couldn't order through it because Lynx doesn't support SSL. He looked to see where there was a Price Club, but there were none near us. Only one in Utah is near Salt Lake, geez. This was becoming a real challenge, so I suggested that we call someone to order them for us, which Walendo thought would be giving in. But having no more plan Bs, he agreed. We tried Jamie, but he wasn't here. I suggested Bob, but Walendo realized he couldn't ask Bob without ever living it down. He's not a Harry Potter kind of guy. So I tried George and, being the reliable sort of guy he is, he was there and he placed the order for us. George told us that it cost us about a gazillion dollars to order both books on tape and have it overnighted to the hotel. In this case a gazillion was about $76, but hey, it seemed worth it, if only for the story of how obsessed we were. After all that excitement, we settled in to watch a good episode of the Practice and then we read for a while and went to sleep. Well, I went to sleep but Walendo kept reading, and then he leaned over to kiss me on the cheek, which turned out to be an ear, which woke me with a start, which startled him. We wanted to get an early start the next day, so I made Walendo finally go to sleep.

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