This long line of red cliffs appeared out of nowhere, and then followed the highway for miles. Denisa kept leaving her spot as navigator in the motor home to take pictures out the side window over the couch.
We have been heading steadily down hill, and our next stop was at the Cliff Dweller Restaurant. We had eaten a big breakfast before we left, so we weren't here to eat. Our ranger friend had advised this stop to get a closer look at those beautiful Vermilion Cliffs. We caught a trail leading down a wash and heading towards the cliffs in front of us.
But that wash continued to twist and turn. There was just enough water to make it muddy at times so we had to climb back out of the wash for dryer ground. It looks like it's an alkaline spring, because the water is turning the ground white.
We now know that those cliffs are really tall. We have hiked a mile, and they are still a long ways away. So we decided to turn back towards the motor home, that was waiting for us in a tilted pull-out beside the highway.
Our motor home wasn't the only thing tilting. A couple balanced rocks near the trail head looked like they were ready to fall right off their pedestals and smash an unsuspecting tourist.
We had been told to keep our eyes on the skies, and Mark spotted two condor soaring overhead. It's hard to differentiate windshield bug splatters from condors in this blurry picture. But we include a blurry picture because it's so neat to see these endangered birds with their 9.5 foot wing span. Condors are being reintroduced to this area quite successfully, even though we learned that this pair's chick died this summer.
Our last stop was at the Navajo Bridge Interpretive Center--3,600 feet in elevation. We weren't sure what that meant when we pulled into the small parking lot. Mark had to do some fancy driving to find a parking place for the motor home with the car towed behind. So it was a fast stop to see the Navajo Bridge built high over the Colorado River.
Running parallel with the new vehicle bridge is the old bridge that was built in 1927. No longer able to safely carry the loads of modern vehicles, it has been re-purposed into a nice pedestrian bridge. From there we could look straight down Marble Canyon to see the green water of the Colorado River. Just four miles down that canyon is Lee's Ferry. We found out that is the only place to launch a boat onto the river for many miles because of the tall canyon walls that surround the Colorado River.
After the bridge, our roller coaster ride headed up-hill for the last segment of our journey today. We had started at 7,600 feet, dropped to 3,600 feet, and now we are powering up to 6,600 feet again through the red hills before descending back to 4,100 feet in Page, Arizona. What a ride!
We had heard that we needed to arrive early to get a good spot in our camping place in Page, Arizona. We were really lucky to get this well-landscaped camp site, with a generous amount of room between us and our neighbor.
Before the evening was over, we were joined with around 40 other RVs in our well-groomed campground. Can you figure out where we are?
We are spending the night at Walmart! We called for reservations at the campground where we stayed two years ago in Page. It seems their rates have more than doubled, and they aren't having any trouble filling up their spaces at that higher price. We're guessing that's why Walmart is such a popular destination for RVers here in a little town that is certainly popular with travelers. So at the end of our roller coaster ride up and down and up and down, we're settling in with lots of other RVers for a quiet night after we do some shopping here at Walmart.
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