Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam

On our travels, we've wanted to come by here and stay at Page, Arizona near Lake Powell. We finally got here.

Lake Powell was created by the Glen Canyon Dam, which is upstream on the Colorado River from the more famous Hoover Dam outside of Las Vegas. It's monstrous !

On our way there, we travelled through some more spectaular country.

This is just one of the views along the highway. It goes like this for miles. Hard to keep our eyes on the road.

Going across the Colorado River, there's an old road bridge that is called Navajo Bridge. A new bridge has been built next to the old one due to the increased traffic and weights of the newer vehicles. The old one is now a pedestrian bridge that we walked on to see down the Colorado River Gorge.

Here's Photo-Kim taking dozens of photos.

Here's the view looking upstream.

...and downstream. You can see a couple of 2-man rafts down below to show perspective.

The obligatory selfie.

I love this sign. What are they going to do if you jump?

One of the most visited and photographed spots in the Page area is this "gooseneck" area where the river turns completely around before heading downstream. There is no guardrail so, in order to get a photo (and to avoid the mass of crazy tourists jostling for a good angle), I crawled on my belly and hung the camera over the edge.

They have plans, and construction is underway, to build a safer viewpoint. I sure hope so. It was dangerous with all the people around.

It's almost a mile to get from the parking lot to this location. All downhill and then all uphill back to the cars.

 We went through Page, over the dam and came to our RV site. This is some of the view.

LOTS of houseboats waiting for summer. The amount more than triples once the weather gets warmer and they get the houseboats out of storage. 

Gorgeous views with the lake as a nice contrast to the desert.

 So..back to the dam...

This dam acts as a "savings account" for the dam downstream. It's used for water needs, agriculture, etc. Turns out the coal plant nearby produces more electrical power than both the Hoover Dam and the Glen Canyon combined. The visitor's center has tours that take you out on the top of the dam, down an elevator to the bottom where you can see the turbines and generators that make the electricity but, the day we went, the wind had picked up to 30mph so it was too dangerous for us tourists to walk on top of the bridge so....it was cancelled all day. We tried the next but the wind was still with us. Phooey.

View looking down at the power plant from the visitor's center.

Same view....waaaay down there.

View from the upstream side from the boat tour we took.

downstream looking up at the dam.

We took a boat tour of the lake, the dam, and one of the water canyons. Pretty cool.

A nice shot of Kim looking over the lake while waiting for the boat to arrive.

Of course, we had to take a selfie. Kim is wrapped up to keep the sun off as we were on the top deck. On the way back, we went downstairs to the front of the boat (which is where we should've been all along...best views).

Heading up the canyon....it gets tighter.

....and tighter. Can you believe our boat captain turned around the boat here? She did.

This person on the stand up board shows the scale of the canyon. It was waaaay up there.

This is Houseboat-Country...these are docked waiting for the heat to arrive

One of many docks in the huge lake that docks the houseboats. They triple in size come summer....and they're expensive! We priced the smallest one out at $3000 for a week!

Here's a close up of some of the boats....take a gander at that fancy one in the foreground.

This gives you an idea of how large they can be. Usually, people will join 2 to 4 families together to share the boat....and the cost!

One last selfie...after the 2 hour boat ride....happy, happy.

Off to Cortez, Colorado next to see the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde. Stay tuned !

steve/kim/katie

Katie wants to drive !