Misadventures

Before we left on our trip, our good friend, Cindy Anderson of the Porltand Happy Hour Guidebook, said, "no adventure is complete without a little misadventure."  I was thinking about that yesterday when I had a tiny misadventure on our last day in Zion National Park.  Maybe you wouldn't even call it a misadventure, but a slight inconvenience, but I will say that forgetting my sunscreen is a real problem and cause for alarm.  It's not like A carries any - he's never needed it.    He did learn how badly I needed it during our honeymoon in Puerto Rico, though, when he got to see how miserable and physically ill getting sunburned makes me.

So, on our return trip up the Zion Narrows when I realized that I didn't have any sunscreen, we were both alarmed.  I never hiked so well or so quickly...at least between shade patches.  I started getting nauseous just thinking about the level of burn I could be getting right then.  I envisioned the redness and could almost feel the stiff crackling in my skin.  I knew most of the people were passing probably had my relief in their bags.  They advise you throughout the park to carry and wear sunscreen.  I'm day-glo white and burn easily so I pretty much do that all summer long even in Oregon, but especially in the desert.  

Long story short, we got back to the van, I sunscreened up and I hadn't burned.  I got very lucky since we were hiking in water and by our afternoon return to the car, the sun was beaming up ahead.  

We weren't so lucky when it came to a misunderstanding of some poor road conditions.  We knew that Hwy 89 near Page had been washed out and were told by some fellow travelers that we would need to take ALT89 to get to Page, AZ where we have reservations for a tour of Antelope Canyon and a cruise around Lake Powell to the Rainbow Bridge.  

So, being the great copilot and navigator that I am, I routed us along Alt 89 and even fit us in a detour to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon which A (and of course, I) have never seen.  The North Rim is beautiful - you drive through crazy desert and desolation to get there, but then you arrive in the Kaibab Forest and gain elevation to a mild, beautiful, verdant green landscape of trees and meadows full of deer and bison!  We saw about 20 deer on the way in and then ran into - literally, we were in the middle of - a herd of bison.  Now, it's springtime/early summer at the moment, so that means - you guessed it - baby animals.  Including BABY BISON.  One little guy was just running around and kicking - he was so fun to watch.  The bison were beautiful and a little scary when they started moving towards Moby.  I've heard legends of the white bison and didn't want to take any chances - so we motored.  

When we got the North Rim, I was shocked and awed by the Grand Canyon.  A didn't really know how afraid I am of heights and this evening really may have helped him understand a little better.  I managed to take the short walk out to Angels' Point, but just barely and I watched with bated breath as he went out to a narrow viewpoint to take a few shots of the canyon with the evening light on it.  It was beautiful and even more terrifying than the bison.  

As the campground and lodge were both booked solid, we deicded to head out of the park which was another adventure as now the sun was down.  Remember those 20 deer I mentioned?  They called their friends for a party stretching the length of the park entry road and onto the connecting highway.   I'd more than trebled the count of deer but the time we got back to the desert floor where we stopped seeing deer.  

We thought about stopping at Jacob Lake to eat and overnight, but there wasn't much there, so we decided to just finish it and get into Page.  Remember I mentioned the road that was washed out?  Well, it turned out it was south of Page and not north.  Ut oh.  A quick review of the maps required some regrouping as our detour was going to take us more than 100 miles around to get to Page for our reservations.  

We're now in Page and would have to go all the way back on the many miles we just detoured around to get back to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, so we're probably going to leave that side for another day.