Heading north

Kimbal and I woke up early and hit the road (good-bye smelly campsite!). We decided that we wanted a few more hike-free days (my knees needed a rest) and we chose to head north towards Lake Powell to do some canyon exploring by powerboat. But before we could relax on the lake, we had a few national monuments to visit that were more or less on the way. Our first stop was Walnut Canyon, where there were over 100 primitive cliff dwellings in a beautiful sandstone canyon with a surprising amount of trees and greenery. The dwellings were really neat because we were allowed to walk around in about 1/3 of them. You could still see the burn marks on the canyon walls where their inhabitants had kept their cooking fires. Oh yeah, and the bugs were really noisy, I’ve never heard so many clicking bugs in my whole life!

Our next stop was Sunset Crater/Wupatki National Monument. The crater was pretty neat, and I had no idea that there was so much volcanic history in Arizona. We didn’t stop though, since it was really hot out and my knees were still a bit sore for hiking. But we did see a jack rabbit, and my, do those little buggers look tough, and what big ears! Wupataki, however, did warrant a stop. The monument is the site of a number of pueblo ruins. The biggest ruin was closed to the public when we visited, however, we did stop and visit a smaller and way cool pueblo. The red sandstone of the pueblo ruins against the blue sky was really spectacular!

From here we headed straight for Lake Powell, where we were able to secure a 19 ft power boat for the weekend and settled in for the night at our most luxurious campground yet. There were showers, a pool, and internet, yeay! Kimbal will fill you in our boat trip in the next entry. Right now, my stomach is rumbling and it is time for dinner!