Kevin and I were the first ones up again. Kevin put on two pots of coffee, smoked his cigarette while I once again photographed the rising sun over the red rocks. One outcropping, “The Penis” was just outside the aft deck. The color scheme never became spectacular.
This is when I noticed that there were no water fowl on Lake Powell. No gulls, no herons, no ibis, no egrets or cormorants. There wasn’t much wildlife at all except for z few whiptails, chipmunks or ravens whose footprints were in the morning sand.
I wanted to hike up the sliding schist rock. The rocks reminded me of so many other red rocks of southern Utah, where the sunlight bedazzles the various hues of the sandstone. I left the houseboat at 6:30am, missing the group breakfast of eggs, bacon and pancakes “We need to finish this gallon of milk!” said Mom, pointing to the half-gallon left.
The walk up the rock was my moment of solitude. I left the others behind as I hiked uphill in bare feet. A man in a small cave played the flute, adding a Native American theme to what I thought was at first an hallucination; was I really hearing a tune?
Several careless hikers engraved their names in the rock. From my standpoint I could see all the houseboats and jet skis in Padre Bay. This was an advantageous vantagepoint. Coming down was a little trickier, but I made it back in 40 minutes with little fanfare. I quietly ate a pancake Kevin had made for me, had a cup of coffee.
We were off for our return trip at 9am. Mom sat up front, alone and in silence and Iris hid upstairs, lost in her study book. I left her alone as I knew she was behind in her studies (I had given up studying at all). I chatted with Jason, Marcela and Alex, took a few more photos but was now just in the mood to get off the houseboat. I was aching for terra firma.
We sailed into the Wahweap Harbor by 11:30am, still ahead of schedule.
The attendees at the marina came to us quickly and within 30 minutes we were getting unloaded at our vans. Kevin, Iris and I took off and ended up getting to the hotel an hour ahead of the others, even after stopping at the Glen Canyon Dam and the bookstore.
Gas prices had dropped another five cents in Page in the four days we were gone, to $3.79.
We made it to the hotel at 1:30pm and were ready to head back into town when the others finally arrived, and an intimate afternoon shopping turned into all of us piling into the van for dinner at the Fiesta Mexicana in town. Mexican food is always a big hit with Europeans.
It was my first margarita since June 2007. One was enough. My bean burrito was tasty and the service quite good.
No one wanted to join me to see Horseshoe Bend a few miles south of town, a quarter-mile jaunt to a spectacular overlook of the Colorado River. I spent 40 minutes there before checking out two more scenic overlooks before heading back to the hotel. Now it was 6:15pm and Kevin was fast asleep. The beers he was guzzling on the boat in the morning had tired him out.
He let me know he was not going to join us for a second trip into town for ice cream and souvenir shopping. We didn't find much in town earlier, and the historic part of Page was a backroad of old hotels that looked more like tennements. But this time we struck it rich, shopping at the "Dam Outlet" which was next door to the "Dam Bar and Grille." We shopped at a t-shirt shop and then stopped again at Wal-Mart for more bottled water: our reveille would be early tomorrow as we need to meet everyone at the lobby at 6am for a river rafting cruise that will last all morning.
I flipped through the cable channels to get reruns of this week's Republican NAtional Convention. I got nothing. I missed McCain's acceptance speech. The only news I got was that Hurrican Hanna is striking the Carolina coast and Hurrican Ike could potentially become a Cat4 storm striking south Florida by early next week.
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