Following Highway 190 we climbed from Death Valley Junction over Funeral Mountains and swept down, past Zabriskie Point with its views of Death Valley and reached Furnace Creek at a bout lunchtime, there we joined the couple of hundred others who had already arrived at Sunset Campground, set ourselves up with a great view up Death Valley and of telescope Peak (11049ft) to the South West of us. We are not here just for the views of Death Valley, but also for a festival in the desert, it is called the 49ers Encampment (one assumes after the gold rush 49ers). It is an annual festival celebrating Death Valley through art and music and basically having a good time, which is what we hope to have.
After a relax we visited the Visitor Center to orientate ourselves and picked up some ideas for sightseeing trips. The in the evening we took our chairs to watch a sort of concert, just local RV’ers setting up and playing mostly Western/bluegrass/country music under the awning of a Fifth Wheeler, but with a crowd of a hundred or so watching. It was warm, the full moon rose in the East behind us and it was a great atmosphere.
We ware finally back here at Death Valley and everything is peaceful and OK.
Monday 29th October This was to be our last day in Las Vegas, so we spent some time stocking up for our Desert Experience, 12 days in Death Valley. A big shop in Walmart. In the evening we stepped out to Fremont Street to experience the Street Entertainment at night. It is indeed a truly amazing happening. Fremont Street is covered in with a high arch roof, a bit like an old train station. Set in the roof though are thousands(?) of lights so that the whole roof becomes a giant screen about 200 yards long. Combined with three stages, a giant 5 wide Zip Line going overhead and any number of street 'Artists' at street level this makes for a very interesting evening. On the hour the roof screen showed some rather impressive videos to Don Mclean's American Pie, Queen's We Rock You/We Are The Champions and Bonjovi's something or other forgettable. Down below we could pick out Spiderman, Transformers, Hulk, Marilyn Monroe, Mr Spock, several Elvises, a few tarts, odd metal painted statues, Big Bird, Smurfs, a couple of Michael Jacksons, the YMCA gang, MrT and a variety of Alien Life Forms. All this was of course compounded by it being the Halloween Holiday, so throw in several Grim Reapers, witches and ghouls and it meant your head was constantly spinning round to see what there was to see. The three stages were very entertaining with live singing and dancing, showing a bits from Rocky Horror, Little Shop of Horrors and general ghoulish entertainment, including their own rendition of Thriller. Then every hour everyone came to a stand still and looked up to watch the overhead screen and listen to the music. The street was also well lit by loads of neon signs and screens. Including the famous Giant Cowboy, which used to welcome everyone with a loud 'Howdy Pardner' until some film mogul took a dislike to it and it has been silence since then. This made a great way to finish off our visit to Las Vegas. Tomorrow back to the desert.
On Tuesday morning we hitched up the wagon and drove off to the West, taking highway 190 to Death Valley, we planned to take an overnight break in Pahrump, the last large town before Death Valley as we had one or two preparations to make before disappearing into the desert. Pahrump is on the border between Nevada and California, so it is full of casinos, so we stayed at the Western Saddle Casino in their very nice RV park, with full hook up.
We purged the waste tanks and filled the freshwater tank. Did last minute shopping at Walmart for fresh vegetables and another 10 gallons of drinking water, to add the 20 gallons already in the van. Bought an extra 5 gallon petrol can, to use in the car or generator. Filled up with gas (petrol) at $3.52 a gallon ($5.53 a gallon in Death Valley). Filled the propane tanks. Got cash. Went to the Salvation Army Thrift shop to buy more books. Yesterday I had cooked a large batch of rice (now frozen), and a large batch of bolagnase sauce (now freezing). We are planning to be in dry camping in Death Valley for 11 nights, so we wanted to be prepared. We set off on Wednesday morning, and managed to squeeze another 4 gallons of gas into the van and gas cans at the Last Gas Station before the border. Then continued West into the desert. Wonderful scenery. The great thing about the desert is that the geology is laid bare – no dirt or trees hiding the rocks beneath. Just rocks and sand (and scrub) in layers of different colours, at crazy angles, eroded and washed away.
We arrived safely back in Las Vegas and after a long but interesting shuttle bus ride got back to our trailer which was safe and sound waiting for us in the Main Street Station Casino RV Park. We had waited in the shuttle line for quite some time, only to be ushered to a different bus, obviously business was slow so they gathered everyone who was waitng and put them on one bus, as opposed to having one bus go to the strip, one to the off strip and one to the Downtown casinos, so we knew this would be a long bus ride, as we had furthest to go. However it did mean that we got an unguided tour of almost every casino in Las Vegas. trouble came when the bus broke down. The bus was stuck in the middle of the road. We had to get off the bus, move through the traffic, wait on the sidewalk until another bus come and picked us up. No apology. After two hours we arrived at our casino - last on the bus. As we waited for our bag to be unloaded I mentioned to the driver that this had not been a pleasant ride, where upon he turned on me and to my surprise angrily agreed. How bad it had been - "Fourteen people had been dropped off and none of you had shown any thanks" (i.e. no tips). (What a surprise) I couldn't get any brilliant reply in, but only could say that I was entirely unsurprised and that such an unusual phenomenon was probably a reflection on the poor service and long trip - he should take it up with his bosses for putting such poorly maintained buses on the road. Wth that he slammed his luggage door stormed off and slammed his drivers door. However I felt a little satisfaction that the company had felt some redress for their obvious uselessness.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
So here we are in Sioux Falls. Before leaving Las Vegas we shopped for warm clothes, so we are at least somewhat equipped for the weather we are expecting. We have not been disappointed. Outside last night was down to 23 degrees. We have been making rapid transits from hotel to car to shops to wherever to avoid severe frostbite. As set out in our itinery our first stop was the Department of Motor Vehicles where, after a couple of hitches we were able to obtain a driving license and ID card. We are now officially residents of South Dakota, so farewell Florida (though we are going back there soon). Following this success we did some sightseeing by going to Sioux Falls, yes i know we were already in Sioux Falls, but surprise surprise there are actually water falls,called Sioux Falls in Sioux Falls. They are not huge, but very pretty as they were formed by a band of very hard pink quartzite, called Jasper. In fact this was the main reason for Sioux Falls existence. The stone was quarried and used for posh buildings.
Monday We moved the 30 miles down the road to take up residence in the RV park behind the Main Street Station Casino in Downtown Las Vegas. It is a very nice quiet RV park, providing you don't mind being 80 yards from a freeway, 25 yards from a busy fire station and on the route every helicopter takes when it lines up to fly down the strip. Had a nice relaxing day, Sally went to Supercuts and had her hair done, looks very nice. Tuesday My turn! Sally scalped me then we went for a walk through the 'Freemont Street Experience. Lots of street artists, great fun. Sally met a black ventriloquist called Scarlet Watts, who was great fun, he is actually English, from Holmfirth, but could talk enough for two (oh he did that anyway), even Sally had trouble getting a word in! Wednesday A pleasant trip out to the local Super Walmart. I have been buying clothes. Needed a cozzy for our trip away this weekend. Tomorrow we are taking a small side trip to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, as you do. I want to get a driving license there, so we are flying up there on Thursday, staying a the Best Western and flying back on Sunday. The forecast says it might snow! But the hotel has an indoor pool, so we hope to take advantage of that.
Friday Still being quite naive we trundled into Boulder Beach Campground on the shores of Lake Mead on a Friday - Of course it was full, well almost, we managed to get on to the handicapped site and were then happily joining the throng that enjoys the facilities of Lake Mead every weekend. We couldn't resist going to a local casino to eat a scrummy rib eye Steak for next to nothing, mmm. We are now firmly in the grip of warm weather! Lovely stuff. On Saturday we took the trip to Hoover Dam, big place! had a nice tour through some of the tunnels and to the power plant hall right at the bottom. Loved the Art Deco architecture. Just down stream we could see the new bridge across the Colorado, very impressive. After walking across the dam we then went up to the bridge and I walked across to get a nice view of the Hoover Dam. We realized why they built the new bridge. After 9/11 no big trucks were allowed across the dam, in case of terrorism, so the new bridge had to be built to let traffic across. We had booked a meal in a local restaurant in Boulder City for our anniversary, a very pleasant place called Evans Grill, very good food, Sally had a fillet mignon steak and I had a rack of lamb, AND a slice of cheesecake (oops). We had a lovely evening. Sunday we had a relaxing day nosing round the marina and some of the beaches. Monday we moved on to Las Vegas.
Wednesday We have arrived at Valley of Fire S.P. amid amazing rock formations, we intend to explore more tomorrow. Thursday We took our lunch and set out to explore this lovely State Park. Most of the forck formations are of sedimentary rocks and there are many fascinating layer effects, The stratigraphy has been determined by both water born and wind born elements, we loved the colour banding and erosion features, from water, chemical and wind erosion. we also enjoyed seeing the variety of plants and animals found in the desert. I have made a small video which is on Youtube. If you watch it, don't forget to switch on sound and switchit to full screen.
Tuesday. I think because I was not feeling to well we both woke early today and Sally said we could make an early start, so we did. We got up and were hitched up ready to go by 8.30. We drove back up the road to Jacob Lake, then Freedonia, however we now struck West on Route 389 to drive to the south of the Coral Pink Sand Dunes, it was a good flat road and we made Hurricane in good time, stopping at Pipe Springs National Monument to look at a Mormon Ranch. Here we picked up some food supplies before driving on a few miles to Quail Creek, we are now just North of St George and plan to move on to The Valley Of Fire tomorrow. Quail Creek State Park is a reservoir just past Hurricane, very pleasant, but no shade. We have now stopped at three Creek S.P.s - Duck Creek, Otter Creek and Quail Creek. Just a happy coincidence.
Moving on from the Coral Pink Sand Dune S.P. In deteriorating weather we are now bound for the Grand Canyon, however we plan to make one more stop at Jacob Lake NFS, which is the gateway to the Grand Canyon area. It was an interesting experience driving in the desert in the rain, as you kind of don't expect it, it was also getting colder. However it was only a sort of drizzle, no fancy thunderstorms at all. By the time we got to Jacob Lake it was just wet and cold and miserable. Next morning we got up and left, it was still cold and wet and miserable, however the drizzle was now turning to snow as we climbed the 40 mile road up to 8500ft to the North Rim of the canyon. It was a true winter scene with snow now laying on the road and surrounding countryside. However our trusty Snow tires held out and we arrived without mishap. We eventually found that the site we had booked at the campground was very nicely placed near to the rim of the canyon, however the mist was so thick we couldn't see the canyon. We set up camp and waited a bit and the snow stopped and it cleared a bit, so we set out for the Bright Angel Point to see what we could see, which to start with was nothing. Sally was in her chair and we ventured out along the paved path in the mist, as we traveled along the mist started to clear and every now and then we caught a glimpse of the magnificent Grand Canyon. Sally was very brave and managed to get right to the end, even though the ground dropped away steeply from either side of the path. We waited at the end for about an hour as the mist slowly cleared, leaving patches of sunlight on the Grand Canyon, as well as misty clouds, it was quite unusual. We returned to our trailer and I cooked a nice hot Chicken and gravy with rice dish, just what you need on a cold day. Next day (Saturday) the sun shone bright and clear, though it was still cold, so we packed a lunch and ventured out on one of the paved trails which took us to Cape Royal, an overlook to the East of Bright Angel Point. Here we were able to actually see the Colorado River at the bottom of the canyon. The views were amazing, as you would expect. We finished off by travelling up to the Kaibab Lookout, where we could see North East to the Vermillion Cliffs, the Marble Plateau and towards Capitol Reef (though we couldn't see it), though we could see Mount Henry, which is 133 miles away! On Sunday we decided to have another look round ourlocal area, so we took the short trail from the campground to the North Rim, where we got some lovely views of the Grand Canyon, then we revisited the Bright Angel Point to now see it in bright sunlight. e went at about 4.00 so that we could see the sunset over the Grand Canyon. It was quite spectacular, but not as impressive as it could have been as the sky was completely cloudless, so there was not a lot of colour in the sunset, however I took some nice photos and Sally was very brave in just getting out to the Point. Monday was wash day, Sally worked like a trojan to do a big wash in the launderette at the campground, then we hd a quiet afternoon at the trailer. We had booked in to the Lodge for dinner. The food was very good, but the views were amazing, we sat near to a large window overlooking the Grand Canyon and were able to eat our dinner and watch the sunset. Tonight really was spectacular, a bright orange, with a line of purple clouds, then as the sun sank below the cloud line a deep magenta glow spread from the horizon upwards. Later all of the clouds were lined in bright red. We sat and watched it all and felt that it was a splendid ending to our trip to the Grand Canyon.
Wednesday 10th We have indeed had a quiet day today, a short drive to the dunes, where we took off our shoes and walked in the very fine pinky, orangey, sand, struggling up one of the dune faces (small). There were some very interesting animal tracks, one of which snaked from side to side, with little footprints either side, which I assumed were lizards, but other ones completely escaped me, one looking like a fat cycle tire tread, about 1.5 inches wide and the other like a half inch wide zipper. When talking to the ranger later he suggested the big one may well be a Stink Beetle and the small one some kind of cricket, very interesting though. As we drove back to the trailer we were surprised by a large shaggy dog lie animal crossing the road about 30 yards ahead. This was our first really good sighting of a coyote (we had seen one in the distance about a week ago), but with trees either side of the road it was gone before I could reach and get the camera, still the record is in our brain and now here on paper. The rest of the day we did indeed relax, apart from having to move site because of a mix up in their booking system. The ranger was very apologetic and suggested several alternative sites, which we sat and thought about, saying yes we would look, but they were probably too small, or too far from the toilets. Eventually he broke! And offered us the use of the one site on the camp with full hook-up, the camp host site, which was now empty for the winter and they charged double for. We reluctantly accepted this change of site and moved over. This will give the batteries a chance to charge up fully as well as being able to heat the trailer in the morning using electricity (yes the nights are getting much colder now and we have moved to the winter duvet and need to put a bit of heating on in the morning until the sun takes over. Mind you when it does it is still lovely and warm. We can also have long hot showers as we are not using our on board water supply and the waste can be got rid of straight away. Sally can use her hair dryer without using the generators, the laptop can stayed fully charged and I can have hot toast for breakfast.
Tuesday 9thAs we managed an early start from Otter Lake we made good time, still on our back road, only encountering one car on the 50 miles to Bryce Canyon. We passed the entrance to Bryce Canyon and stopped for a coffee/tea, where we managed to catch up on emails. Then we travelled on to Route 89 and headed south again. We were able to get all the way to our most optimistic destination of the day, The Coral Pink Sand Dune State Park Campground. This is a very quiet area of Southern Utah, it is backed by the Vermillion cliffs and is an area of sand dunes which have been created by a wind funnel effect between two sets of mountains. They are very pretty and a sort of orangey pink colour, due to the Najavo Sandstone from which the sand dunes have been derived.
We have modified out itinery, so that we can move more gently, so our next target is to arrive at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon by Friday, so we are going to travel North West up route 24 to Koorsharem, then take the backroad, route 22, south back to Bryce Canyon. This road is not so spectacular, but is also less well travelled and also almost without an steep grades (better petrol consumption). It winds to the West of Boulder Mountain and gives some interesting volcanic scenery, we also passed many homesteads, as this valley has water! And appears quite fertile. It was interesting to see the history laid out for us. Each homestead seemed to have an abandoned ancient log cabin, then a more modern house built alongside. The farms were quite small, probably reflecting the right to homesteading that was encouraged in the 1800’s. (640 acres), It is also highly likely that these were the families of the original Mormon Pioneers. We had shopped in Loa and picked up petrol, so we were well stocked up when we pulled in to Otter Lake State Park Campground, where we were able to take our pick of lakeside camp sites, we had a gentle walk to the lake side and watched the cormorants, grebe/divers, coots, ducks, gulls and a couple of pelican swimming around.
We are also here to see the northern part of the Waterpocket Fold, at the northern end the emphasis is on the harder sandstones which provide massive cliffs and narrow gorges and ravines. The geology is more spread here, rather than the concise fold that e experienced on the Burr Trail, however it is just as spectacular in its scenery and we really enjoyed taking a day to drive the Scenic Loop, taking in the unpaved side roads into some of the narrow gorges, Capitol Gorge in particular boasts really tall cliffs and a really narrow bottom. Three nights here has not been long enough, but it has been a good time for Sally to recover from her infected throat.
We pulled into Fruita campground on the Friday lunchtime, only to find that it is so popular that the campground was about 10 minutes from being full! Fortunately there was a handicapped space available for us, we were greatly relieved. Apart from being a very popular campground this was Friday of a holiday weekend - Monday would be Columbus Day. Fruita is an Oasis. The trouble with the term Oasis is that it is largely a fictional concept, fed by 50’s ‘B’ Movies, of some lush trees, perhaps in a valley, water running through, under a red hot sun in a clear blue sky, surrounded with baking sands. Well that is Fruita! Only instead of palm trees there a a number of small, green, grassy, orchards where they have grown apples, pears, peaches, apricots, almonds, cherries, etc since the Mormons first arrived in the 1880’s. It is on the only road which passes through the Water Pocket Fold, it is the only place to have constant water for many miles, the Fremont River. The early settlers irrigated the flat valley floor either side and produced the orchards, which now we camp among, in season you can pick the fruit right off the trees, they even provide ladders and pickers for you. We missed the last crop (apples) by a day! But we did get the lovely autumn colours in the stands of Cottonwod and fruit trees. However, Fruita has to be on any campers list of campgrounds if you are within 100 miles of it. It is a truly beautiful oasis in the middle of the desert.
Friday 5th We packed up and left the Lonesome Pine pull off to continue along Route 12 Scenic Byway, we now had a 79 mile drive over Boulder Mountain to Fruita. It is a big mountain by any standards, it reaches 11,300 ft, the road gets up to 9,600ft, and we had to drive about 30 miles round the side of it. All the way we found amazing pull offs to admire the Fall colours of the Aspen and the views, first back to the West of the Powell Point and the Grand Staircase, then the Southern pat of the Waterpocket Fold, then as we rounded the mountain we could see the extent of the Northern Section of the Waterpocket Fold, Capitol Reef and the Henry Mountains way in the distance. It was quite amazing to be looking down on countryside with its rows of 1000 foot cliffs. A great drive.
Thursday 4th October Next day we took the drive to the Waterpocket Fold, Sally was still unwell, but determined that having come this far we would do it! The Burr Trail is fortunately paved for about 30 miles, and we were camped 5 miles along it. It then turns to dirt road and then has a set of steep switchbacks to tak us down into the Waterpocket Fold. The Burr Trail then goes South along the fold, eventually getting to Bull Frog, a marina and Ferry on Lake Powell. Our aim was only to go to the bottom of the Waterpocket Fold. We drove slowly along the Burr Trail, after about 5 miles is descended into a long, deep, narrow ravine, called Narrow Canyon. The layers of red sandstone towered on either side of us, the canyon had a small stream running through it, with huge boulders strewn across the floor. This canyon was about 6 miles long, we came out the other end to find that the entrance to the canyon at this end was part of a plateau, about 600 feet above the valley floor below, straight down. Fortunately there was a reasonable road to take us onward. We then travelled about 10 miles across scrubby high desert, until we hit the end of the paved road. Now we were travelling on dirt road and approaching more rocks, like huge jagged teeth across the landscape. The road twisted carefully between cliffs and there below us was the Waterpocket Fold, a single valley 60 miles long, with steep cliffs either side and something under a mile wide. The whole landscape had been formed when the land to the East had been forced up several thousand feet by a fault deep underground, the surface rocks were bent upwards, so that the rock strata was left at an angel of about 60 degrees Later differential erosion left the harder rocks standing out and the softer rock became valleys, the waterpocket fold valley is the softer bit. From the top of the fold the view was amazing; you could see right across to the Henry Mountains, it was wonderful.
The only way to access the valley floor is down the mile long switchback of the Burr Trail, so having reached the top the only was down, so off we set, slowly grinding down the cliff face, twisting and turning, always driving on the side of the road that was against the rock face, hoping nothing would come the other way, fortunately only one car did and we were able to find a place to pass each other. After the switchbacks the road wound down to the valley floor through a ravine, once on the valley floor we drove a short way and would have had lunch, but there was no shade, so we came back again into the shade of the ravine had lunch, I had a quick explore while Sally had a quick sleep and then we came back up again, driving back along the Burr Trail to our trailer under the Lone Ponderosa Pine. It was a wonderful day and I can only thank Sally for managing to take the trip even though she was still feeling unwell.
Wednesday 3rd October The problem with being out of Internet range is that you forget where you are with the blog!. We have now been out of range for over a week, so I am not sure where I should pick up from.
Sally has not been too well, having had a throat infection, which was cured by the doctor in Escalante on Monday with a shot in the bum (antibiotics). This left her feeling pretty exhausted, so we rested at the Petrified Forest State Park until Wednesday. We left Escalante to tackle what I feel is the central challenge of our trip this Fall – Capitol Reef, particularly a feature called the Waterpocket Fold.
This is one of the most remote parts of Utah, which is in itself one of the most remote parts of the USA, so it is pretty remote. Mostly accessible via dirt roads which, although we are able to ride on because of our high clearance, are pretty uncomfortable for two reasons: potholes (self-explanatory) and washboarding. Washboarding is a cruel trick of road maintenance and loose sand/dust on the road. Every so often a road scraper will pass over dirt roads levelling them out; unfortunately they leave a sort of ripple effect on the road surface, which repeated scrapings makes worse. These ripples are like the little waves that form on a sand beach, except they are between 6 inches and a foot in wavelength and anything up to 2 inches high. There are two ways to tackle them – either at 5 mph, carefully traversing each ripple, which is safe but bumpy, or at a speed between 30 and 40 mph, when you go so fast the suspension lets you just glide over them, a process I have now named ‘Washboard Surfing’, which is OK until you either meet a corner, a downhill or a pothole. Braking on washboarding is an invitation to dig the wheels into the washboarding and you wipeout in a terrifying cacophony of every panel of the van banging away and everything loose inside bouncing around and threatening to perform short bursts of freefall acrobatics. Navigating washboarding has the feeling of trying to land a space shuttle, you know where you want to go, but you are trusting to luck to get there in one piece, because you have very little control of what is happening. Hitting a pothole is self explanatory. Trouble is when you have dirt roads that may be fifty miles long the 5mph option is not really an option. So you drive on a knife-edge with the spectre of wipeout with every approaching hazard.
I digress. To reach the inner parts of the Waterpocket Fold we needed a base camp, the only suitable place, that we could plan, is a small pull off about 5 miles down the Burr Trail Road. A place marked by a large lone Ponderosa Pine (as described by the Forest Ranger at the visitor center in Escalante). We set out from Escalante on Wednesday 3rd October. We drove up route 12. Another spectacular section of road taking us through more ravines. We turned off route 12 at Boulder, onto the Burr Trail and surprise, surprise, found the pull off with its Lone Ponderosa Pine, just about lunch time. Here we camped, alone, in the middle of the desert, in the dark, where there might be bears, or robbers, or scorpions. We enjoyed the solitude and the warm weather, Sally continued to be exhausted, but recovering, so we sat for the rest of the day here just enjoying the peace.
Couldn't not include this very unlikely hit in the UK in 1975, it would have reached number 1, but for Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody:
Monday October 1st Having dashed across Nevada in two days we are taking time to get through Utah. Cathedral Canyon to Duck Creek is only 89 miles, Duck Creek to Bryce is only 50 miles, when we moved on it was only another 50 miles to Petrified Forest State Park in Escalante. where there is a reservoir and a petrified Forest, though we have not seen that yet. We are following route 12, which is a scenic Byway of America and joins many of the amazing land forms of this area.This whole region of Utah is called the Grand Staircase National Monument, because it is a landscape made up from a whole series of cliffs and plateau which start in the south with The Grand Canyon and rise in a series of steps to Powell Point. As you travel through you are continually confronted with vertical cliffs that soar above and deep ravines below, where water and ice have ripped away the rocks as the Colorado Plateau was slowly pushed up as two continental plates collided. The geology is amazing and I don't pretend to follow all of it - there just isn't time to find out about it. But the visual effect is staggering.
Our onward progress has been halted temporarily as Sally has been unwell with a throat infection, which required a visit to the local clinic, so we will stay at Escalante Petrified Forest State Park for three nights instead of one, before we move 30 miles up the road to Boulder and The Burr Trail, which will give us access to the Water Pocket Fold, the main feature of Capitol reef National Park, although on Sunday we did have a meal out at the local restaurant, called the Pioneer Restaurant, we shared a Beef Pot Roast, which was very nice.
Saturday 29th SeptWhat can you say about Bryce Canyon? We first saw it in 2003 and promised that we would one day return (just like June Lake in 1997), well here we are back again and it is still just as beautiful as we remembered it. We strolled up to the rim to look down on those red, cream and white pillars. We just wandererd the rim for a couple of hours noticing how the changing sunlight altered the view (there was partial cloud). In the afternoon we joined a ranger led Rim Walk to hear about the geology of the park, then sat and watched the changing rocks as the sun went down. I returned at about 9.30 in the evening as there was a full moon and it was very easy to see the rock formations, I took a couple of photos, but they did not do justice to the moonlight. The camera I have is able to take panorama photos in 3D, so I took several 3D shots, even though we don't have a 3D TV, I am sure that we will one day.
