On a bus tour like ours (Caravan) regular rest stops are scheduled in. This one was to a unique place with a store, as usual, and restrooms, a must, but fun stuff to see and do in front and in back of the building. Kanab, Utah, calls itself “Little Hollywood” because of all of the Westerns filmed there. It started way back with Tom Mix. It was a rainy morning, but still fun to see.

This is an ancient dwelling over 800 years old. The inhabitants chose to build in a cliff side for protection. The model that shows daily life in the dwelling was constructed by Rangers when the actual dwelling was closed to visitors in the 1920’s. Inhabitants used sycamore trees in their construction and for ladders. The tree has an interesting-looking bark. This monument is located between Phoenix and Flagstaff, Arizona

Lake Powell exists because of the Glen Canyon Dam which generates electricity and regulates the water used by Utah, Arizona, California, and Nevada. The tour was fun, even in the rain. The bridge next to the bridge, however, was very cool because it was built in Emeryville, CA, and trucked over here to Arizona. When they put in the final connectors between the two halves of the bridge, it was only off by 1/4 inch.
I found it interesting that it took 17 years to fill Lake Powell after the dam was built in 1963. Each year they have to allow a certain amount through for each state that uses the water and when all of that is finished, they keep back water to fill the lake.

Lake Powell used to be Glen Canyon discovered by John Wesley Powell. When the Glen Canyon dam was built, the Colorado River filled Glen Canyon to form Lake Powell. Our cruise day was rainy, but the trip was still beautiful. The interesting marks on the sandstone cliffs were carved out mostly by flash floods. We met kayakers, jet skis, and guys standing on paddleboards. I thought it was interesting that the cliffs all have a lighter-colored lower layer known as “the bathtub ring”. It is a layer of white calcium carbonate that soaked into the sandstone from the highest water mark back in 1983.

We spent the day on the border of Arizona and Utah. Mostly, we were on the Navajo reservation, but the Hopi reservation is inside the huge Navajo reservation. We visited a trading post where I got to watch a Navajo woman making a rug. I have grown up with native artifacts, since I am Native American, but I never watched someone make a rug. What a lot of work and skill to create such a beautiful object. We traveled to Guilding’s where we had lunch (fry bread sandwiches… Yum) and then toured Monument Valley in a Jeep tour led by a Navajo guide. I especially thought it interesting that the top layer of the buttes are made of a very sturdy rock which keeps the mountains from being eroded away to nothing.