Last of the big Adventures

  I like to think that rather than take vacations, Joani and I go on adventures. Outside of North America we have been to Africa, Asia, Australia, and to Europe several times.  On each trip I have thought that we have been very adventurous at times. Multiple times, I have thought, "what have I gotten Joani into now?". Upon having said that, this was by far the most extreme undertaking  we have done together. I was thinking several times on the hike down into the canyon that Joani would never forgive me for talking her into this, and the same on the way up. But we made it and then afterwards did several short hikes throughout Arizona, confirming that this is a rugged, beautiful area. But if you do visit this region be prepared!  If you intend to leave the inhabited towns and cities to explore any of these scenic outlying regions, bring hiking or trail shoes, sunscreen, and always carry salty snacks and water. Lots of water! This is an extreme area with an unforgiving terrain and unbelievable heat.

 With all of that said, I can honestly say that Joani and I enjoyed this vacation tremendously. We did something we weren't sure we would be able to do and along with that, we saw some beautiful scenery and met some great people who, as I have said before, even if I never see them again I will always consider friends.

This will be my last post and wrap up and I hope you enjoyed our trip to Arizona.

 After Lower Antelope canyon we took a short side trip to see Horseshoe Bend.

If you can stand closer to the cliff edge you get a much better idea of what's going on in this photo but I was dealing with vertigo when I took this shot so you don't get the whole effect. One website I looked at stated that it is a 1000 foot drop from where I'm standing, to the water but I don't know for sure.  The river comes in on the upper left, circles around this giant rock that refuses to erode and then flows out on the upper right. It's hard to get a true idea of what it looks like in a photo but believe me, it's quite cool.

We left this site and went to have an early dinner as we had to get up early the next day to be at a tour guide office by 6:30 am to see the upper Antelope canyon.

 The Upper Antelope Canyon was similar to the lower in that it was comprised of sandstone formations carved by erosion from wind and water. The difference being that the upper was more spacious, although shorter in length. This meant that the lighting was very different. Unfortunately, the best time to get photos in this one was around noon and that time usually sells out months in advance, so although we got to see it, the photos I'm showing you don't do it justice. Still we got a few nice shots that I'll attach.

 If anyone asked me which Antelope Canyon I preferred I would have to say Lower, but with that in mind, if I had the opportunity to get back and see the Upper at midday I'd love to see it again. 

 Arizona is, as near as I can see a state comprised of canyons, so the last canyon we hiked through was the Fay canyon.

 We hiked into this area on our last full day of our vacation. and if these two photos don't do it justice I thought I'd take this this opportunity to show off my film making skills one more time.

 So with that in mind I'd like to say, that in our brief eleven days in Arizona, Joani and I hiked into, or around, The Grand, Glen, Upper and Lower Antelope as well as the Fay canyons, but we did not see,

 Gunfighter canyon. Neither Joani or I had an inclination to shoot a machine gun, or any gun for that matter. Go figure.

I did enjoy seeing my childhood friend, Mark Twain.

And, both Joani and I got our kicks on Route 66.

Goodbye to and from Arizona.

Garry

Lower Antelope Canyon

   After two days in Sedona we jumped in our rental car and headed off to Page to see the antelope canyons. (upper and lower) Although I enjoyed them both The lower antelope canyon turned out to be one of the most photogenic spots I have ever seen.  I took maybe 100 photos and when it came time to try to whittle that down to 3 or 4 to show you I found out that it was an impossible project. So I decided to devote this entire post to it. as I said before, I have this vivid color setting on the new camera that Joani gave me and I was swapping back and forth between it and a low light setting and no matter what I did, the photos seemed to be great so I'm just going to throw a bunch of pictures at you and you see what you think.

When I was still doing this as an email rather than a blog, someone told me that I could get long winded when I write. If so, that was one of my most silent posts. Being in this canyon was like being in a Cathedral and it somehow managed to make me look like a professional photographer. My biggest problem  will be negotiating with Joani for how many of these photos I will be allowed to put on our picture wall.

 If you are still following this blog I can tell you that I'm going through my photos to see if this Arizona vacation will be one or two more posts.

 Garry

The Magic of a Vortex

 So after our great Grand Canyon adventure, Addie and Bret were kind enough to drop us off at the Flagstaff airport and we rented a car and headed off for part two of our holiday. We had several things we wanted to do over the next four days but part one would be driving to Sedona to experience a few Vortices, and before you ask, Vortices is the plural of Vortex. What is a Vortex you ask?? Well I'll Plagiarize an explanation and then copy down the link if you want to read more.

 What is a vortex? Sedona vortexes (the proper grammatical form ‘vortices’ is rarely used) are thought to be swirling centers of energy that are conducive to healing, meditation and self-exploration. These are places where the earth seems especially alive with energy. Many people feel inspired, recharged or uplifted after visiting a vortex.

https://visitsedona.com/spiritual-wellness/what-is-a-vortex/

 Balderdash you say, phooey, that's a bunch of pure hokum you're thinking. Well at least that was what I was thinking before we went, but Joani wanted to see a couple and don't get me wrong, the scenery around these so called mystical places looked pretty cool so I figured why not; Joani came with me to bottom of the canyon, I could easily take a walk to a couple of these areas.  We had decided that the two we would see would be Cathedral rock and Bell rock. These looked the most scenic and that was my reason for going and Joani agreed that these were good choices, so first we headed off to Cathedral rock armed with cameras and water. ( You carry water with you everywhere you go here as it always seems to be a least 100 degrees F and very dry.)

 Seems normal doesn't it, no magic involved in that, it's just a big red rock. The thing is, this was a chance for another hike and that was cool for me so we started hiking closer.

And closer.

 A lady took our picture together.

Apparently you could hike almost to the top but after a while Joani had had enough of hiking, so she found a shady spot and rested while I hiked on by myself determined to go as high as the trail would allow. This was when things got a little funky. Joani had bought me a lighter camera for this holiday as she didn't want me hauling my big heavy model down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. This new camera while being small is a great little device that I still haven't completely learned how to use yet, but there is one setting that I have used frequently. It punches up colours. If you have gone through my earlier posts you have seen the effects of this setting several times. It doesn't change colours, but just makes them a little more vibrant. All the photos I have taken in the last days I have alternated between this setting and the auto focus which doesn't explain what I'm about to show you. As I continued hiking up Cathedral rock on my own I continued snapping photos and took a couple of amazing shots that I never even saw until two days later when I was downloading pictures for possible use on this blog.

 First this one!

Then this one.

I guarantee that I used one of the two settings that I had been using for the entire vacation so far, and you have to believe me when I say that I don't have the ability to change the camera settings or modify a photo to look like either one of these. So what happened? Was I standing on the epicenter of one of these Vortices or did my camera burp......twice? I could swear I see some sort of aura around both photos and it's freaking both me and Joani out! I would like to mention, being oblivious to this phenomenon affecting my camera, I continued to the top of Cathedral rock.

 I'm not saying that there's something mystical going on in Sedona. I'm not big on mystical stuff in general, but if anyone wants to step up and tell me what happened to my camera for those two shots just email me. I, as I've already said didn't look at those two shots until a day and a half later so I wasn't too spooked this particular day to look at the next vortex area on our agenda. Bell rock.

 I didn't climb it because it looked like a much more steep climb and I am not really a rock climber. So we contented ourselves with just taking photos from further away. In hindsight I'm not unhappy with that decision especially after seeing my cameras reaction to the first Vortex area.

 Bell rock is right beside another big red rock called Courthouse vista.

No freaky photos from this one either which made me happy. My camera is new and a present from Joani. No sense in blowing it up.

 We also visited something called the Chapel of the Holy Cross. A church built by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright.

 This is the back side of the church. I only realized later that I hadn't taken a photo of the front that is considered very photogenic. But I will tell you that the scenery around this church was amazing!

All kind of red, but if you see all these red giant hills scattered all over the place it sort of freaks you out. At least it did to me.

 This about ended our first part of Sedona. The next day we headed  to Page to see the Antelope canyons. See you there.

 Garry

The Canyon conquered

 I'm getting to be predictable but to be honest these videos give a better idea of the stories I'm telling than any single photo. At least it seems that way to me and since I'm writing this blog we're going with it. While this post will be all about hiking back up to the top, the video at the start is almost at the top to give you some idea of what we were about to attempt. And since I'm alive to type this I guess you know we made it, but I'm here to write the gory details.

This one is of us at six am .We all look pretty cheery, mainly because we had no idea how hard it was going to be again, and also there was no sense starting out crying.

 The sun had barely cracked the horizon and if you look closely you can still see the moon in the sky.

 We would be climbing Bright Angel trail which is 10 miles in length and climbs 4380 feet up. Just what some people would call a walk in the park. People who hang around the Grand Canyon, that is.

 The sun crept into the sky in a hurry.

And that meant it got real hot, real fast.

 On an interesting side note, we came upon this hole in the wall and Addie told us the story about a man by the name of Ralph Henry Cameron who with some partners filed a bunch of fraudulent claims along the Bright Angel trail so they could charge people tolls as they passed by his dormant mines in order to get to the bottom of the canyon!! Interesting business.

 Meanwhile as we were walking up the side of the canyon it kept getting hotter,

and hotter.

 We had to get out of the way when a mule train passed. If you've followed my blog/emails over the years you know whether it's Mules, Buffaloes, Goats or Donkeys, animals always have the right of way!

We were heading up,

and the mules continued down.

Oh yes, did I mention the temperature also kept going up.

 At one point in time someone dropped one of our hiking poles down a couple of stories and Bret hopped down like it was nothing, grabbed it and was back up in a flash, but this wasn't as uplifting as it would have been two days before. By this time us rookies already knew that he and Addie were second cousins to Billy goats or Longhorn sheep and rules of things that bothered us, didn't pertain to them. We were mere mortals and this was starting to hurt.

About halfway up is a rest stop called "Indian Garden", we had something to eat and refreshed our waters, but I think for all of us we were getting pretty tired. It was halfway granted, but it was the easy half and things were only going to get harder as it continued to get hotter.

 Yes that is 120 degrees in  the little bit of shade that the roof overhang provided and it was still early in the day. Lots of time to get hotter and although I had been trying to keep everyone cheery acting like a clown, even I was wondering, "what have we got ourselves into."

 Help came in an unexpected form.

 Yep, right out of the blue, who shows up but Ranger Dan. He and another female ranger had hiked up to check some things at Indian Garden and I just happened to see him and called out...."RANGER DAN". I think everyone else in our group at first thought I was hallucinating or suffering from heatstroke but when I pointed him out we all started laughing. He picked up all our spirits, me just because I had got such a kick out of his classes at the bottom, and I think the rest laughed at how much fun I had surprisingly seeing him halfway up the Canyon. There was nothing for it but to get my photo taken with him, I mean we had already got one with him and Joani and by this time I thought we were old friends. Bill snuck off and asked the other ranger if she could give me a junior ranger badge which I think he did to tease me, but truth to tell it will make a great souvenir. Thanks Bill.

While I shouldn't talk for the other hikers, I think we all left the halfway mark feeling a lot better, maybe just for different reasons. Thanks Ranger Dan!

 Things ran smoother for a while after that.

But I don't mind telling you it was a long hot day!!

 These tracks, that Addie pointed out, predated Dinosaurs, and it helped seeing something so ancient.

\

And it finally started getting cooler as we climbed.

And still we climbed. Ahead of us in this photo is the home stretch. By this time we knew we were going to make it allthough the breaks were coming faster and faster as we got more tired, more sore and the elevation was starting to get to us even as the heat was dissipating.

Five of us almost at the top. Joani of course is the love of my life, but the other three you see in this photo, I will always consider great friends, whether or not I ever see them again. (And I do hope to see them again)

 The entire group at the top. We were all happy to be at the top, celebrating in our own way. I know I was walking around pumping my fist in the air, whooping and hollering, and a group of total strangers upon seeing us celebrating and finding out what we did, congratulated us and took this photo.

These two, Bret and Addie were smart, efficient, capable, caring and funny. But most of all they were also people who I will always think of as friends, whether I see them again or not.(again I freely admit I hope I see them both again some time)

One more plug to the company they work for.

https://www.oars.com/

 The challenge.

 The finish line

Garry