Monument Valley and The Goosenecks (mostly pictures)

Location: Mountain View RV Park (el 7,000 ft); Monticello, Utah

All pictures taken with Nokia Lumia Icon 929 Cell Phone.

current location 

I left Page this morning around 9:00. Instead of emptying my tanks I added a half bottle of Dawn to each tank and used the travel day as an agitator. I'll empty tanks before leaving here. I do this every now and then. I would prefer to use Calgon and Dawn but I seem to never be able to find Calgon in the stores. I also added some Pine Sol to take care of some sewer gnats that I picked up somewhere along the way.

The trip took me through the Navajo Nation and Monument Valley. I also made a short detour to see The Goosenecks of the San Juan River. I first saw a picture of them on some blog many years ago. Ever since then, they have been on my list of things to see. 

I'm a little tired so I'll just post the pictures with captions. Here we go:

Sunset over Page on the last night. It was appropriate to include the electrical transmission tower. Without the dam, there would be no electricity or city. Page was constructed for the construction workers on the dam. Other than the dam, there is no reason for a city the size of Page to be in this location. When you hear people talk about infrastructure and public work projects, think of Glen Canyon Dam. The electricity produced, water management and recreational benefits have paid for the work many, many times over and will continue for decades to come with very little maintenance cost.

The three smokestacks belong to the Navajo Nation coal fired powerplant. It and the Kayenta coal mine, located about 60 miles away employ thousands of Navajo Indians. It is the major source of revenue for the tribe. But even with it, the Navajo people are still very poor. But things are going to get worse. The plant is due to close in 2019 because natural gas fired powerplants are cheaper and burn cleaner. The glut of natural gas produced with fracing will put this plant out of business. They will be applying for federal subsidizes to allow the plan to continue, but hopefully, that won't happen. This is free enterprise in action. Something better and cheaper has come along and older methods will have to give way. This is a lesson for the people going crazy about Trump getting out of the Paris Agreement. They make it sound like everything is going to go back to some point in the past. This coal fired plant will shut down and thereby reduce the carbon put into the air. This is due to frac'ing which the environmentalists disagree with. It's like a vicious circle, but in the end, Capitalism and Free Enterprise makes it work. 

This is the typical land in the northwest corner of the Navajo Nation.

I was able to see this mountain for a long time. That cloud just got bigger and bigger. It never moved in the 45 minutes I was able to see it. It was as if the mountain itself was creating it. I guess that is possible if the mountain is giving off extra heat, then the moisture in the air is being converted to making a cloud. It did look weird though. Not as weird as the swirling cloud around Devils Tower though. Now that was weird. I also wanted to show the electrical lines above the train tracks. The train delivers the coal to the powerplant using an electrical power engine. Pretty neat.

The landscape changed a little with this row of hills.

You top out a hill and you can see in the distance buttes and spires. The next picture is a close up of the spire on the left of the road.

I had to take this one over my shoulder a little bit, but I wanted to get the "face-like" part of the stone. 

Monument Valley in the distance. The location for several movies, specifically John Wayne's. 

Road cuts and barren land

If this looks familiar, it means you watched the movie Forrest Gump. The state created a pull-off for people to take a picture. I pulled Freedom and Liberty over and temporarily blocked a car from leaving. I was only going to be there less than a minute to take a couple of pictures. The couple got "horsey" and developed an attitude. Oh well, I waved to them as I left. I hope they had a great day. 

This is from the next pull-off. I got a wider look at the valley.

With no cars coming, I quickly took one from the centerline of the road.

The sky added to beauty with the blue sky and puffy clouds. They didn't stick around though.

The Goosenecks of the San Juan River. The river was muddy looking so I guess it had rained upstream. I waited a long time to see this but things never worked out during the times I was in this part of the country. The buttes in the upper left are part of Monument Valley 

This was a panoramic view. If you look closely on the right, you can see a group of rafter/tubers floating down the river. 

Nothing special other than it looked neat.

This stretch of road came as a surprise. Those trees on the right were the only ones during the whole trip. They came out of no where and lasted for about 2 or 3 miles. Nice change in scenery. 

Those white puffy clouds gave way to this rain storm. I saw no lightening nor did I hear and thunder. Just large drops of rain and a quick drop in temperature. Freedom has a read out of the outside temperature and when I entered the storm it was 83 degrees. Within 2 to 3 minutes, it had dropped to 50 degrees. A 33 degree drop in such a short time. I have been in storms where it dropped but never that much and that quickly. It was something else.

I couldn't decide between the two storm pictures so I included both. 

The storm only lasted about 10 to 15 miles, then it cleared. It was kind of refreshing. I couldn't remember the last good rain I had been in.

Clear sailing after the storm.

This is the campsite. I will be here for three days while visiting the southern part of Canyonlands National Park.

Note: I'm too tired to proof read this post so if you find something that you can't decipher, leave a comment and I'll try to clear it up for you. 

Ya'll take care of each other. I'll Cya down the road.

Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell

Location: Page Lake Powell Campground (el. 4,300 ft); Page, Arizona

all pictures taken with Nokia Lumia Icon 929 cell phone

Route from Mansfield, LA to Page, AZ

Glen Canyon Dam is upstream of Hoover Dam and smaller by 6 feet. They rank number 1 and 2 in terms of the largest concrete arch dams in the country. Construction of the Glen Canyon dam began in the year I was born, 1956. The first blasting of the rock faces was on October 15, 1956 and the blast was set off by President Eisenhower in Washington D.C. when he pressed a telegraph key. Setting off an explosive charge from several thousand miles away must have been very impressive for its time. Probably a way of showing American abilities during the Cold War. 

Glen Canyon Dam. The bridge in the
front of it had to be built to move
construction equipment and materials
from one side of the canyon to the other. 

Once concrete began to be poured, it continued around the clock for more than 3 years. As with most of the dams built during the early to mid part of the 1900's, Glen Canyon was a hydroelectric dam. The first full electrical load was produced in 1966, a full 10 years after construction began. The electricity produced is used in 7 states with two being as far away as Wyoming and Nebraska. As I've said many time before, hydro power is being underutilized in the country (just my humble opinion).

Glen Canyon Dam with Lake Powell 

Lake Powell

The lake impounded by the dam is named Lake Powell. It took 17 years for it to fill up and did so in 1980. It is the second largest man made reservoir in the U.S., again, behind Lake Mead which was created by the Hoover Dam. Lake Powell is one of the prettiest lakes I've ever seen. The water is a pretty blue and it meanders up every little canyon along the way. At maximum pool stage it covers an area of about 161,000 acres with a max depth of 532 feet. The lake provides water for Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. These are considered the Upper Colorado States in terms of water. The dam releases the necessary amount of water to be retained by the Hoover Dam for use by the Lower Colorado River states of California, Nevada and Arizona. These two dams provide most of the power and water for most of the southwest. 

There are lots of very large houseboats/yachts on the lake. They are so large that they have to be built near the lake because the roads into the area are too narrow to handle them. Once on the lake, they basically stay there unless they need repairs. The repairs places are also near the lake. It would be a great time to have one of those boats to explore every canyon for a hundred miles upstream. That would be nice. 

I guess I've rambled on enough. The old Civil Engineer in me leaks out every now and then. The rest of the post will be pictures of the area and some of the trip between Flagstaff and Page. Some may not have captions since I can only use "wow" or "nice" every now and then. If you can think of some other captions for the pictures, post them in the comments section. 

This is approaching Flagstaff from the
east. That mountain is very near
Flagstaff.

This is after turning north at Flagstaff

It's pretty country

A mini Devils Tower?

It seems I've traveled a lot of long, lonesome highways.

Very good mountain roads.

I got lucky in that I got stopped in a construction zone as I was coming down the hill into the Page area. I was able to get a couple nice pictures.

Another one from the construction zone.

My campsite. Water/electric only. I tried to extend my stay but they are fully booked over this weekend. 

A Navajo Taco. It has the normal taco stuff placed on Indian Fry Bread. The best description I had for the fry bread is like a "sopapilla". It was good, but I still prefer Taco Bell. By the way, Page is a 2 Taco Bell Town.  

I climbed down to a scenic overlook in town. Going down was easy but I had to stop a few times going up to catch my breath, wait, take more pictures.

This is the reward for climbing down. It technically isn't a bench, but I'm counting it as one. That is the dam between the columns.

This is looking downsteam from that scenic view spot. The canyons are the beginning of the Grand Canyon further downsteam.

A little bigger Devils Tower, but still smaller than the real one. This one is called Tower Butte and is on the Navajo Nation. 

The Lake stretches out for a hundred miles or more

A panoramic picture. My cell phone does these pretty good.

That is one of the Marinas on the lake.
Big boats.

Looky Here,,, I did find a bench overlooking the lake with one of the monster boats. Notice in the far distance on the upper right and you will see the 3 smokestacks from the Navajo coal-fired power plant. The plant and coal mine are located on the Navajo Nation. 

Same bench but looking at the dam on the right and the Navajo power plant in the top left. Two different types of power plants. The Navajo plant is only viable because of the water impounded by the dam. It is due to close in 2019 which will put thousands of Navajo's out of a job. Look for a lot of political pressure to be put on D.C. to help subsidize the plant.

It sure is a pretty lake.

Tomorrow is moving day. I'll be moving a little over 200 miles to the northeast to the town of Monticello, Utah. I'll be there for three days before heading east. 

Ya'll take care of each other. I'll Cya down the road.

Meteor Crater

Location: Homolovi State Park (el. 5,000 ft); Winslow, Arizona

All pictures taken with Nokia Lumia Icon 929 Cell Phone

Meteor Crater

It is the crater left from a meteorite that hit this area about 50,000 years ago. It hit the earth going about 26,000 miles per hour and created an impact equal to about 20 million tons of TNT. Notice all of the "abouts" up there. It's because a lot of it is pure guess work and estimations. There isn't a doubt that a meteor hit this location, but everything else is estimated. Wind and rain erosion changes the lanscape of many places in just a couple of decades. But this crater has been around for 50,000 years? Really? It is the best preserved and the first confirmed meteor crater in the world. 

Meteor Crater is something that has been on my list of things to see for a long time. Well, I've seen it.

I don't know if I've become jaded about seeing things like this or not. I used to enjoy them as "wow" moments. The last couple of things have been "not so much wow". Maybe I've just seen so much that I've gotten used to it all. Maybe it's the commercialization of the crater. It is privately owned and I'm sure they are making a tidy profit. You would think if Devils Tower made the ranking to be a National Monument, which it deserves, then Meteor Crater would also. There seems to be a double standard. I believe both should be on the list but the 4,900 square miles of Ocean that became a National Monument a few years ago should be looked at again.

Tomorrow is moving day. I'm near Flagstaff and as I mentioned in one of my previous posts, it would be a decision point for me. I would decide to continue westward or turn north. I decided to turn north and head to a town called Page, Arizona. I'm hoping to go to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon while I'm there, but we will see. I will be there for at least 3 days. It too will be a decision point as I'll need to decide northwest or northeast from there.

Sunset in the campground. One of the campers have a high flying American Flag which is nice, especially for this weekend.

Not only on this Memorial Day, but everyday, please remember all of the fallen service men and women who have given their all for their country. 

Ya'll take care of each other. I'll Cya down the road.