Lower Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, and Lake Powell

If you are not familiar with all that southern Utah offers in the way of unbelievable natural wonders and extreme adventures, you're going to want to start your research.  Antelope canyon is one of those destinations you can appreciate by looking at photos, but it will blow your mind to actually hike through it.  The canyon is divided into "Upper" and "Lower" Canyons, with the latter being more narrow at the base and with stairs to climb.  Bob and I had scheduled a tour with a Navajo guide for the afternoon of Tuesday, September 17, 2018. Can I tell you how hard it was to pick a sampling of favorite photos?  Enjoy looking, and then schedule your own tour!

We walked past the underground canyon on our way to the entrance, without a clue of what such a boring landscape disguised below.  After descending some stairs, we found ourselves in an amazing underground cavern with a shaft of light illuminating it's contents.

As we explored the canyon, the range of colors that appeared in our photos was incredible:  white, brown, pink, orange, yellow, red, purple and even blue!

 Wow, aren't you in love with the layered blends of color?!

 There were lots of fun shapes in the rocks:

 And photos of Bob and I and our guide.

And a few more for good times' sake . . .

 Before we knew it, we were ascending the final set of stairs and appearing out of a crack in the ground.  What an amazing experience!

The following morning, Bob and I hiked out to Horseshoe Bend - not to be confused with Dead Horse Point in Moab, Utah, as shown in the this photo from our 2014 family reunion.

This is Horseshoe Bend, Arizona

Later that afternoon, we headed to the marina at Lake Powell to meet up with my family. Unfortunately, we were held up a bit due to Kent having some car trouble while towing Jim's boat.  By evening, some of us were on board the houseboat and searching for a place to set up "camp".

The rest of the gang was picked up by boat from the marina later that evening and soon we were all soundly asleep.  (That is until early morning when Sharon could no longer snooze through all the snoring on board.  Oh well - photo time!)

Thursday was playtime, and unfortunately, Kent cut his foot open on a rock while playing frisbee.  We spent a good portion of the day back at the marina while Kent went to urgent care to get it stitched up in Page.  Poor Kent . . . good luck was not his friend this vacation!

That night we had a showdown with a coyote!  Really! - just ask any of us.
 We made up for lost time on Friday when Jim took us all over the lake in his boat.  Our first destination was to rainbow bridge.  It was a nice hike and afterwards we refreshed ourselves with ice cream at one of the lake's marinas.

 We took off and explored lots of nooks and crannies around the lake and came to know why Jim thinks he'll invest in a Lake Powell houseboat.

We stopped at another marina for dinner and enjoyed some delicious artisan pizza.

Thanks Jim, for arranging a great Lake Powell trip - Bob and I had a great time!  We only wish we hadn't needed to depart so early on Saturday morning - enjoying the last day with you would have been sweet.