On the Road Again - Glen Canyon

We drove west from Monument Valley, stopping in Page, Arizona for a quick lunch and to take a short hike to Horseshoe Bend, the spot where the Colorado River "meandered" and carved a trench shaped like a horse's shoe. Standing on the rim 1,000 ft above the river, we could see kayaks and rafts as tiny specks far below.

From there, we decided to take route 89A to Kanab, which required an additional hour of driving but had interesting things to see en route. We walked across the historic Navajo Bridge, at the very start of the Grand Canyon.

We took a small detour to see Lee's Ferry, the launching point for all the rafting trips through the Grand Canyon. We hiked a little way along the bank of the Colorado River, but didn't get very far in the extreme heat.

Next came a scenic drive alongside the Vermillion Cliffs, with many interesting boulders near the highway.

We didn't have time to detour to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, alas, so we continued on 89A and soon found ourselves surrounded by towering ponderosa pines in the Kaibab National Forest. There were so many different landscapes on one stretch of highway!

We encountered heavy rain in the forest, so we weren't able to stop and view the Grand Staircase. The rain stopped, we crossed the state line into Utah once again, and we were in Kanab.