“On the road again,
Goin’ places that I’ve never been,
Seein’ things that I may never see again,
I can’t wait to get on the road again…”
Willie Nelson
Sunday May 28, 2023
Quote added by Laura Kate and post written by Dana.
Sunday, we had to check out of our Tiny home in Cane Beds, Arizona and say good bye to the Utah parks. We headed south through the Kaibab National Forest toward Jacob Lake. Jacob Lake Inn was built in 1923 and has a restaurant, campground, and general store. It was built to provide lodging and services to the North rim of the Grand Canyon. Although we were only 40 miles away from the North Rim, we couldn’t visit because the road there was closed due to a break in the main waterline that serves the Grand Canyon Lodge. More than 300 feet of the North Rim’s pipeline were destroyed by a winter storm landslide. The Grand Canyon Lodge will open June 2 with limited services but won’t offer lodging until late July. Last September, the South Rim pipeline (which is buried under the North Kaibab Trail) broke resulting in water restrictions for that section of the park. The Trans-Canyon waterline was built between 1965 and 1970 and serves both the North and South Rim. Currently, there is a project underway to replace the original waterline and install two treatment plants. After seeing the Grand Canyon, I can’t imagine how they can do repairs much less replace the whole thing. Equipment and tools must be delivered by helicopter. But I digress, the main reason we stopped at Jacob Inn was for their homemade cookies. And they didn’t disappoint. We all had our favorites; mine was the lemon zucchini.
Jacob Inn also has historic bar and restaurant open for lunch and dinner
From Jacob Lake, we skirted the southern portion of Grand Staircase-Escalante and saw the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. We have seen rocks from red to grey to white on our trip. We had to take a southeast route from Cane Beds because the Grand Canyon is huge. There’s no bridge across the middle of it, you just have to go around it. One of the bridges across the East end is Navajo Bridge which is close to Lees Ferry. Lees Ferry is a historic site where travelers headed out west could cross the Colorado river. It was the only site available for hundreds of miles. Today, river guides use it to launch their rafting trips down the Colorado through the Grand Canyon – some lasting 14 days. Since, it’s one of the few places you can get down to the river, we stopped for a while to walk out in it. And it was cold! I read that the temperature of the river doesn’t go above 50 degrees even in the middle of the summer. This is because Lees Ferry lies below Glen Canyon Dam and the water released from the dam is hundreds of feet below the water surface.
From Lees Ferry, we headed to Page, Arizona for lunch at the Birdhouse – fried chicken – original, spicy and honey butter. We all thought is was excellent. I liked the honey butter best. Rob had the spicy. The girls ate chicken tenders. They just don’t like eating chicken off of the bone. I must have done something wrong by not frying up a chicken on Sunday’s after church for them.
While in Page, we visited the Glen Canyon Dam – the second largest in the United States – on the Colorado River. The Colorado River is the largest source of water for the southwest. It starts in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and runs all the way down to California. Hoover Dam west of the Grand Canyon is also on the Colorado River. Water is a controversial topic in the west. Everyone needs it and those in the Upper Colorado Basin are required to provide a certain amount of water flow to the Lower Basin. And Lees Ferry is the dividing line between the two. Also in Page is the site of Horseshoe Bend – 5 miles below the dam and within the Navajo Nation territory. The Colorado River is 1000 feet below the overlook. FYI – this is not the same site as the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in the War of 1812. That battle was fought close to Dadeville, Alabama. There was another battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1832 in Wisconsin. I guess horseshoe bends in rivers are common.
From Page, we head south through the Navajo Nation and then west along highway 64 to the east entrance of the Grand Canyon. We have our first glimpse of the canyon at the Desert View visitor’s center. And it was amazing! There are canyons and then there is the Grand Canyon. And we have already seen a lot of beautiful canyons on this trip. Each have been awe-inspiring in their own way. But the first view of the Grand Canyon is breath-taking. We traveled along the South Rim stopping as several overlooks and stopped at Grandview Point to watch the Sunset. From the mid 1800’s to early 1900’s this spot was the epicenter of visitation to the Grand Canyon. Below Grandview, you can see Horseshoe Mesa, once a mining spot for copper. Grandview once had a hotel there for visitors who wanted to come up from Flagstaff along a long, bumpy, dusty wagon road. But once the Santa Fe railroad completed a spur rail line to the rim 13 miles west of Grandview, most visitors took that option and tourism at Grandview dwindled. The hotel closed in 1913 and was dismantled. Some of the wood was used in the Desert View watchtower.
After the sunset, we checked in at Maswik Lodge. And now I’ll turn the blog back to Laura Kate for the rest of our Grand Canyon visit.
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