West Trip 2012: Day 26

Zion Ponderosa Ranch, Utah to Flagstaff, Arizona

253 miles, 6 hours

Weather: Day 76, Night 38

At the table this morning at breakfast, looking out the window, Leah says, “Daddy! I see a kangaroo!” Well, it wasn’t quite a kangaroo, but it was a huge jackrabbit-and since Leah had never seen one of those before, it sure looked like a kangaroo to her! It was the event of the morning-we all agreed that if we were going to have rabbit stew, we’d have jackrabbit stew!

We packed up and got on the road about 10 am. Our route this morning took us first east through the south end of Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. We did nothing more than drive by and see the plateaus and sandstone, but there was lots to see! Continuing east towards Page, Arizona we came to Lake Powell. It was a good time to stop for lunch, so we pulled into the Glen Canyon Recreation Area (our $80 National Parks pass has more than paid for itself by now-we have used it so many places!) and parked overlooking the lake at the Waheep area to have lunch. We walked down to the boat pier, took a look at the water-crystal clear and green-and continued on to the Glen Canyon Dam. We took some pictures, browsed the visitor center to show the kids about the Colorado River being dammed up, and then crossed the huge arched bridge and continued south. We stopped for about an hour at Lake Powell total. While we would have loved to been able to rent a boat or spend more time on the lake, that will have to wait for another trip.

The drive south on Rt. 89 took us through a large section of the Navajo Nation. It is very sad to drive through the Native American reservations out here-they are always so depressed, run down and very junky. Many of the houses or trailers had tires all over the roofs to keep the roofs from flying off. All along the highway were little stands set up where Indian women were selling their handmade goods-blankets, rugs, pottery, jewelry. Most of the shacks looked like they would blow over with the next gust of wind. Even the highway for 24 miles was completely shot-extremely bumpy, uneven and gravely in spots. I am sure that I do not understand all of the reasons that explain the way things are in the reservations, but it saddens me to see what has happened to the Native peoples of our country.

We arrived in Flagstaff about 3:00 Pacific Time (Arizona is on Pacific time!) and pulled into our campsite at Woody Mountain Campground. It is certainly not the best place we’ve stayed, but it will do, as we will only be here 2 nights. There were actually not many campgrounds in the Flagstaff area that had good reviews. We get most of our campground information from a website called rvparkreviews.com-people rate campgrounds all over the US and they have been super informative and helpful, and for the most part, completely accurate. There is wi-fi at this campground, but we have to drive up to the camp office to connect there, so hopefully we’ll get pictures and everything updated while we are in Flagstaff!

We ate dinner (BLT’s) and then took a drive into town. We stopped at a Goodwill (per Bay’s request!) and also a Wal-mart to get a few things they did not have in the tiny town of Springdale back at Zion Park.

The kangaroo---I mean jackrabbit!

Bay in his new cowboy hat and his belt. He keeps saying that's all he's gonna need, and then he realizes he's gonna need something else to be a cowboy!