Glen Canyon Dam
It was nice when we left Zion National Park early this morning. We drove up the steep and sharp switchbacks to the Mt. Carmel tunnel, and waited about five minutes for our turn to go through. It is easy to see why you need a pass allowing only one way traffic. The tunnel is probably (just) wide enough for two vehicles, but not high enough on the edges for a trailer. You pay $15 for a tunnel pass, they close the tunnel to only allow traffic in one direction, and then you drive right down the middle.
The view of the rock is stunning as you drive through it on the way east out of the park. After leaving the park the terrain opens up into broad, high plateaus for the most part. As you get farther east the rock gets even more red, almost a red-brown, or sienna shade.
The road goes up and down through several deep canyons, and over some high plateaus. By 11 o’clock we were at the Glen Canyon Dam in Page, Arizona. We stopped briefly to walk down to a viewpoint of the dam which is basically at the start of the Grand Canyon.
We bought gas in Page, and it is a good thing we did. The wind had picked up all morning, but as we were travelling to the east the south westerly wind was more or less striking us on the side. However as we now changed direction and headed south to Flagstaff, the wind was head on, and it was very strong. According to the weather news tonight the gusts were up to 80 km/h. I can believe that they were that strong, as tumbleweeds were flying straight down the highway. A plastic bag flew up in front of us, stuck to the front of the hood, and flapped loudly until we stopped for gas in Flagstaff, and it fell off. The trailer swayed a lot in the wind.
When we left Flagstaff we once more were headed east, so the wind was not as big a problem, but gusts still tossed the trailer around. When we got here to our RV park in Holbrook we found that a piece of the metal skirting on the base of the trailer had blown loose and was falling down. I was able to put it back in place, and put some more screws in so I hope it will stay put.
The weather forecast for the next few days isn’t great. It is going to be cool, and probably wet, so we may not get a very good visit to the petrified forest.