Photo Friday: A Page From My Travel Log

Part 2: We continued on our travels north to Page located in north central Arizona, just south of Utah.

Our first stop in town was this Shell gas station. No, we did not need gas.

It was to visit Secret Sand Cave, aka Gas Station Cave, located behind the gas station. It's become viral on social media, which is how I learned about it. My husband thought it sounded super shady when I initially told him about it 🤣 You cross the parking lot and begin walking up a hill of sand. There is no way to tell from the road or at the start of the climb what awaits you. (Besides a lot of sand in your shoes.)

This is a picture inside the cave, looking out onto the town of Page.

It's hard to tell from the pictures, but the walls are massive! We were lucky to get some shots while there weren't too many people around. Very cool experience.

Then we drove to Navajo Country for the Antelope Canyon tour I had booked. Antelope Canyon is a red rock canyon spanning 23 miles and made up of six slot canyons. We were visiting the one known as Antelope Canyon X. You can only visit the area with a Navajo tour guide. We showed up to the check-in station, located in the middle of nowhere. When your time slot is called, you jump into a van, driven by a Navajo, and after about a 10-minute bumpy drive past that sign, you are deposited at another middle of nowhere location, where your guide is waiting. Our guide was Franco. We descended 200 feet down a staircase to the opening of the slot canyon.

I had been to a slot canyon in Utah, but it was basically walking five yards into the crevice and then turning around and exiting. This was completely different!

This is what it was like, walking through the canyon. It was a mile long series of going in and out of tight spaces.

At the beginning of the tour, the guide had us look up to see the X, which is how this particular area of Antelope Canyon got its name.

Beauty formed by wind and rain. The guide gave us a lot of geological information, most of which went right over my head. He was also very kind, taking pictures of everyone in different sections of the canyon. Once we got to the end, we turned around and retraced our steps back out.

After climbing the stairs 200 feet back up, we took another van back to the parking lot. Antelope Canyon was definitely the highlight of our trip.

Our next stop in Page was Horseshoe Bend. After parking, it is a 1.5 mile roundtrip walk on pavement. If you enlarge the photo, don't the people look tiny? 

Horseshoe Bend is part of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and it is where the Colorado River travels in a horseshoe shape, making a 270 degree turn. (The Colorado River also runs through the Grand Canyon.)

Close ups of people doing some recreation!

After checking into our hotel and having dinner at Grand Canyon Brewing (a local chain), we headed out to see the sunset.

Grandview Overlook, looking out over Lake Powell and Antelope Island. Yes, it looked just like a painting!

Utah's Grand Staircase Escalante in the distance. If you followed me back in 2010, we did the complete circle of the five national parks of Utah that summer, including my first slot canyon experience in the Grand Staircase.

Desert Sunset

The next morning, we were on to the final leg of our trip. More to come!

Have you ever visited a 'secret' place, made popular by social media?