Canyon Country road trip

Dad got the canyon bug last month (I'd say he picked it from me, since I had it earlier this summer, but I inherited the condition from him to begin with), and Addison and I agreed to come along with him on a three-day road trip that took us 750 miles through some of the most amazing country on God's green earth. Except in this case, the earth was red and chocolate and white and orange and dark purple and pretty much every other color of the rainbow. This was our route:

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We went down the evening of Halloween and got to go trick-or-treating with Grandma and Grandpa and Lindsey and Micah. We were scheduled to leave on our trip at 6:00 the next morning. Addison woke up at 5:00 and proceeded to puke his guts out, thanks to Halloween candy-bingeing. We had to stop twice in the predawn hours to beg grocery bags from convenience store clerks, but after tossing his tootsie rolls a couple more times he was good to go.

Between heaves.

Our first hike was called "The Toadstools," just east of where highway 89 crosses the Paria River between Kanab and Page. This was ultimately Addison's favorite hike, partly I think because he was elated to not be in the car throwing up anymore. But it was also great because he got to run around and explore hoodoos and little caves and the slickrock landscape.

And he got a souvenir:

Next stop, after visiting Grandpa's gravel pit in Big Water, was the dam tour at Glen Canyon. We managed to keep the "dam" jokes to a minimum and I managed to not mention Edward Abbey or the Monkey-Wrench Gang to the guys with guns.

After a delicious lunch at Slacker's in Page, we got permits for Antelope Canyon's lesser-known sibling, Water Holes Canyon, and for the second hike in a row saw not a soul the whole time. It was a beautiful hike, but then I'm a sucker for slot canyons.

Addison did ok on this ladder going up, but on the way down he kind of had a meltdown and I had to make him close his eyes and then pick him up and hand him down to Dad. After that he was pretty stoked about life in general and I think had some adrenaline going on. A thrill junkie in the making.

The third hike of the day took us out to Horseshoe Bend just south of Page. This one was overrun with tourists.

We spent the night in Kayenta. Addison had very much recovered and he played for a long while at the Burger King play place. Interestly, the Burger King also had a Navajo Code-talker Museum. At the hotel, Add surveyed his spoils from the day. The lizard tail had broken into a thousand pieces and had to be thrown away.

The next morning we got up and drove through Monument Valley. We explored a wash for a few minutes and Addison pretended it was his fort and he was an Indian fighting cowboys.

We found this sign at the visitor's center. I don't know if its intended audience is the locals or tourists.

After this, Addison started to get a bit tired of driving, and I think the drive in general lost some of its luster. I had spent hours preparing a map for him with pictures of landmarks like the Mexican hat and the Hogsback, but he wasn't terribly interested anymore. Still, he did great and complained little. He still loved the hikes and could get a little excited about the scenery. By the end, though, when we said, "Look at that!" and directed his attention out the window, he would just dutifully glance and say, "That's awesome" and get back to playing with his dinosaurs.

We took a quick side trip to the Goosenecks of the San Juan,

and then up the Moki Dugway, which has got to be among the most exciting state highways in the lower 48. Addison had a minor panic attack because Dad drove it like it was the Autobahn. (OK, not really.)

We stopped at Natural Bridges National Monument, where we saw Sipapu Bridge

and hiked to Kachina Bridge. I had just gotten through promising Add that we wouldn't have to negotiate any more ladders when we rounded a corner and lo and behold, a ladder. He took it in stride and said, "You must have typed in [Googled] 'hikes with no LONG ladders,' cuz this is a short ladder!"

If you looked closely, there was a lot of Indian rock art around the bridges, and we even found the ruins that they keep quiet about.

Check out the handprints on the wall.

Then we had a picnic lunch and it was back in the car. This is the point where Addison got bored, but before long we had crossed Lake Powell and the Dirty Devil at Hite and went on a short explore for more Indian rock art, and then we were at Leprechaun Canyon in North Wash.

Leprechaun is the slot where they filmed "127 Hours." It wasn't the canyon Aron Ralston got stuck in (that was Blue John Canyon, a long ways to the northeast) but that canyon was too remote and Leprecahaun is right off the highway and very photogenic. It has three forks and requires rappelling gear from the top, but we just walked up the main fork from the bottom. After awhile it slotted up nicely, and it got so tight Dad had to turn around and find an alternate route over the top.

Then came a magnificant section called "Belfast Boulevard"

and then it closed up into a dark, narrow cave-looking slot. At that point there were two pools, the first of which reached my knees and the second which I opted not to test.

After that we drove up to Hanksville, through Capitol Reef as it got dark, and to our hotel just outside Torrey. I had a blast riding shotgun with all my USGS maps loaded on my laptop, and Dad was a good sport as I prattled on about the names of all the rock formations we saw. That night we dined in style at the hotel restaurant and went star-gazing... for about two minutes before it got too cold to be enjoyable.

The next morning we woke up to this view from the back deck:

We spent a bit of time in Capitol Reef because Dad had driven through it so many times and never seen any other parts of it,

and it was up Boulder Mountain, over the Hogsback, through Escalante, and on to Bryce.

Everyone really enjoyed hiking down around the hoodoos, and we even raced back up the switchbacks.

Great picture by Addison.

From there we drove up Cedar Mountain to over 10,000 feet and Cedar Breaks. It was like suddenly being at the North Pole.

And then we met Michelle and the girls in Cedar City. It was the trip of a lifetime, and it was fun to relive the glory days with Dad and introduce Add to the amazing Colorado Plateau.