outside of restaurant in Kanab, Utah
We stopped in Kanab, Utah for lunch. It was Sunday so most of what there was of the town was closed, but we did find an open one-stop-shopping gift shop and restaurant where Elise finally bought the watch she has been looking for during the past couple weeks. Then we went to the restaurant for two very large and delicious beef barbecue sandwiches and an excellent piece of cherry pie. We talked to the chef afterwards and he invited us back for dinner; he said that people came all the way from Canada for his beef brisket, and after eating his barbecued beef, I could believe it.
Our next stop was the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Even before we reached the canyon we had some great scenery to enjoy. There was a field of yellow from a grove of aspen trees, and not much further along, an even larger field of orange and yellow. It reminded me a little of the mosaic walls of the Reading Terminal Station of the subway in Philadelphia.
When we finally reached the canyon itself, we took a short hike along the rim of the Canyon on the Bright Angel Trail, which according to my old journal from our crosscountry trip in 1967, was the hike we took then. The Canyon probably hasn't changed very much, but since I didn't remember it at all, it was like a whole new experience, and the Canyon is certainly impressive if only for its immensity.
We didn't actually remain there very long, but headed back up Route 89 with the intent of finding a warm place to spend the night near Page if we didn't find anything sooner.
The drive through Glen Canyon and Vermillion National Monument was very scenic, with flat land on both sides of the road for a short distance and then huge red rock formations rising straight up beyond the fields. On top of the Vermillion Cliffs sat the Pariah Plateau, with the colors of the rock changing regularly depending upon the geologic era in which it was formed.
When we came to a sign for Lee's Ferry, I remembered that I had heard something good about it from one of our friends, and although I couldn't remember specifically what I had heard, we decided to turn in to that road and take a look. We quickly found ourselves in a narrow canyon with more tall colorful rock formations on both sides. There was also a sign indicating that there was a campground ahead. The canyon was no less impressive than the other scenery we had been seeing and although we had planned to stay warm in a cabin or motel, since it was still quite warm at 6:00, we thought we might at least take a look at the campground and perhaps spend the night in our tent.
campground in canyon on road to Lee's Ferry
The campground itself was interesting and different. First, it was as barren and bereft of any plant life as the cliffs around it, even though the Colorado river flowed by just below. To provide some privacy, however, metal barriers about seven feet high had been built between the campsites. Metal awnings sheltered the picnic tables to protect them from the sun. We talked to a couple of the other campers, including a transplant from Brooklyn now living in Boulder, who assured us that the temperature at night would probably not go below sixty degrees, so we set up our tent, cooked up some leftovers from our food supply and spent a comfortable night sleeping in our tent for the first time in several days.
The canyon also contains 160 species of birds, including swifts and swallows, which migrate away from the park.
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