September 24 - Lake Powell/Glen Canyon

Two nights in one place = luxury...

For the first time since our odyssey began, we get to spend two nights in a single hotel. Better yet, we found out after checking in here that this hotel (Marriott Courtyard, Page, Arizona) will do laundry at a buck a pound. In the last eight days we've accumulated about a ton, but it will be worth it. We had to get up at a reasonable hour this morning to make it to a 9 AM boat ride up Lake Powell this morning. It wasn't to be. First of all, Mary Frances's earrings popped off as she put on her turtleneck. Always eager to help, I suggested they may have fallen into her décolletage, and offered to search. Sure enough, I found one there, and though I saw the other one on the floor decided to keep searching for a while longer. Then when we asked the young lady at the front desk for directions to the Wahweap Marina, her directions and our interpretation of them were somewhat at odds, and our fifteen minute trip closed in on half an hour, during which we also needed gas, for another few minutes' loss. At last we entered the Lake Powell National Park, and as we saved fifteen bucks by virtue of our Senile Citizens National Park Pass, and told the young lady at the booth we we a bit late for our 9AM boat ride, she cheerfully explained that it was only eight o'clock. Time zones are a bit sketchy out here, having more to do with where business comes from than when the sun rises or sets, but we were willing to believe we had fouled up subtracting only an hour from our watches the day before. So we stopped at a couple of lookovers and took some pictures and eventually got to the tour boat marina, where we learned that the lady in the National Park toll booth apparently had her alarm set wrong this morning, and it was nine o'clock after all. Actually, quite a bit past nine by now. But we didn't miss the boat. Firstly, because they had no record we had ever ordered tickets [I know I did] and secondly because they had too few sold and the ride was canceled. So, we ordered tickets for the afternoon tour. And that was nothing short of wonderful.

Overlooking the Wahweap Marina, Glen Canyon National Park, Lake Powell

Lake Powell/Glen Canyon - simply beautiful...

Once we got on the boat, which was full for the afternoon tour, we met some nice people, Doris and Bill from Fairfield, Connecticut, and enjoyed a three hour tour that covered maybe 1% of Lake Powell...a 148-mile-long lake created between 1957 and 1980, as was the city of Page, Arizona, created only for the purpose of creating Lake Powell, and sustained now only by its popularity as a tourist attraction. Everything in these parts in the Dam something...tonight we had dinner at the Dam Bar & Grill. But man's ability to create puns, or even to create dams, pales in comparison to nature's ability to create a magnificent vista. Since it takes 10,000 words to adequately describe a picture, we'll defend you from a million or so of them, and just present the pictures:

Another great day with a great travelling partner

There are lots more but those will be found on our Kodak Gallery site after we get home, sometime next month. Just trust us that Lake Powell is another of those beautiful places you can only find in the American West.

Afterwards, we enjoyed a couple of beers with our new friends from Connecticut, followed by a lovely meal at the Dam Bar and Grill. To make the evening complete the Red Sox whacked the Kansas City Royals 10-3. Life is good.

Wherever we stay, my bride and I get out our laptops at the hotel (unless we're in a National Park, where the internet hasn't been invented yet) and read our email before recording our thoughts in this admittedly one-sided forum. Sad to say, a lot of my email is things that many of my dear friends forward (forwarding requires two clicks; a lot less than thinking) that attack our President. In the previous administration, we had a President whose intellectual credentials and manners were severely lacking. In this administration, we have a young man who is at once intelligent, articulate and polite. In the previous administration, the executive branch sought to enhance the rich by creating a plutocracy where only the middle class and poor were taxed to excess, and only the wealthy received new tax relief. In the previous administration, the other nations of the world were treated with contempt, and "you are either with us or you are against us" was the mantra for our diplomacy. In the new administration, our President has attempted to renew our friendship and respect for other nations, and other nations have responded positively to his efforts. This new administration has attempted to create a consensus by inviting the opposition party to present its views on legislation on health care and the environment, which the opposition party in its Newt Gingrich heyday never did. The opposition party has opposed everything the administration has offered for no other reason than to oppose it, and offers zero suggestions for improving our society in any way. The previous President, who in eight short years changed our nation from a world leader to a world scapegoat and from fiscally solvent to the largest debtor nation in the history of the world, is white. The current President, who has sought to mend the broken fences in our diplomacy, restore the even-handedness of corporations to the people who make them work, and to place health care, environmental survival and equal justice to all as priorities for government, is black. Former President Jimmy Carter offered a suggestion recently why there might be such opposition to someone so clearly superior to his predecessor. President Obama, to his credit, rejected the idea, as did all those who attack him day after day for whatever he says. But the truth is out there.

Tomorrow, Zion National Park...