avoiding the desolation that freaked us out a few days earlier. This time, we headed east on highway 89 through the Grand Staircase, past the Chocolate cliffs (which Ranger Kevin assured us did NOT taste like chocolate no matter what they looked like) and into Page, Arizona.Just to the west of Page is Lake Powell and the controversial Glen Canyon Dam. On last year’s trip, we spent an afternoon in Chattanooga, TN watching an IMAX theater production about the water evaporation and drought caused
by this dam. In Grand Canyon, the rangers talked about the effect the dam was having on the wildlife in and around the river. Tired of driving, we decided to stop at the dam for a look around and a brief out-of-the-back-of-the-car lunch. While inside the museum, we discovered that the park had a Junior Ranger program as well as a tour down into the dam. So, we decided, why not.We had been doing all right with all the time zone changes until this moment in our trip. Interestingly enough, even though Arizona is on Mountain Standard Time (MST), the entire
state has decided that they will not participate in Daylight Savings Time. As a result, for these few months of summer, Arizona – though on MST – follows the same time as California or Nevada. (Confused yet?)We first encountered this problem while we were at the Grand Canyon, but it really didn’t matter as it just meant that we were able to be places really early. We had forgotten this little nugget of information while hanging out at the Glen Canyon Dam. We got there at approximately 12:00 p.m. MST. When we walked in, we noticed that a tour of the dam would be taking place at 12:30 p.m. What luck! We were just in the nick of time!
“Yes,” the Park Ranger behind the reservation desk informed me, “we do have an opening for four people on the 12:30 tour. (I could hardly believe our good fortune.) Just
come back around 12:15 and there will be someone here to take your money.”Rock on! I returned to Ross and informed him of the good news. “What? They want you to come back and pay in 5 minutes?” he asked. I looked at my phone – he was right, it was 12:10 p.m. “Guess so,” I said. So, in 5 minutes, I dutifully returned to the desk but had to wait a bit behind some other tourists. While waiting I glanced at the clock behind the counter. It said 11:15 a.m. “Duh!”
So, we messed around the bookstore, museum and parking lot for another hour finishing the Junior Ranger books until it was time to join Ranger Rob Gay for a tour of the dam. While chatting with Rob before the tour, we found out that his father grew up in Arkansas City, Kansas! I love it when stuff like this happens..
Ranger Rob was another terrific tour guide but the place was locked down like Fort Knox. We had to put everything but our wallets and water bottles back into the car to be able to pass
through the security checkpoint at the beginning of the tour. A guard followed us throughout and we were instructed not to bring up the word “bomb,” “gun,” or other terrorist language as it would be taken seriously. We had already coached the boys about this particular rule while we were waiting for the tour to begin.Rob took us down an elevator, through a long tunnel in the rock out on to the top of the dam. There he talked to us about how the dam was constructed. We saw the Colorado
River head south on one side and we peered over the edge at the carp swimming close to the dam in Lake Powell on the other side. Then, it was down another elevator to the generator room another 500 feet down to the bottom of the dam. On the way there, we saw a man rappelling down the dam’s back. Rob told us that they did this on a regular basis to inspect how the dam was holding up. Looked like a pretty hot job to us. In the generator room, Rob told
us all about how the water works together with the generators to make the electricity that is sold to 1.7 million customers in the desert area. Not one mention of the changes to the environment, but several mentions of the effects of drought and lots on water conservation. The cycles of wet and drought were also clearly explained as was the information that this is not the lowest the water level has been. God Bless the Rangers for the job that they do.All together, we dropped 600 feet from the museum top to the generators. We had a moment of tension as we left the generator room when Isaac – our child who is fascinated by weapons of all kinds – made
his way all on his own over to Ranger Rob to ask him a question. I quickly 
moved in to catch up with him in order to cover any damage that might be done. Instead, what he wanted to know was how they were growing grass just below the dam when it looked as if there was concrete everywhere. I relaxed.Ranger Rob explained that the area leading to the generators housed the pipes that carried the water to the huge turbines. The water traveling through those pipes was doing so at a great speed. When water travels that fast, it shakes. So, they pack the area around the pipes with dirt to make sure that the water getting to the generators has slowed down and is a smooth as possible when it hits the spinning wheels. They plant grass on the top to keep the dust to a minimum.
On the way back, Ranger Rob had told the several boys on the tour that if they were good, he would howl like a wolf in the tunnel below the museum. They were and he did. It was a pretty good howl.After the boys were sworn in as Junior Rangers of Glen Canyon National Park, we headed on toward Durango. We joined Highway 160 east of Page and spent the next few hours driving back through Kayenta, Arizona and Monument Valley on road that we had been on a few days earlier. At Teac Nos Pos, Arizona, we turned and followed Highway 160 north to the four corners monument and Colorado.
We of course stopped at the four corners monument to eat some Navaho Fry Bread, do a little bazaar shopping and get our picture taken on the flat topped monument where the four states
meet. We waited until the monument was clear of people and also ran together all the way around the four states. It took us about 30 seconds, we looked like idiots, but we had a lot of fun. The boys spent some of their souvenir money here on official Indian weaponry (bow and arrow and a slingshot) and we bought a Christmas ornament from a local artist.This stop was a little sentimental for me as somewhere in my childhood photos is a picture of me in my Kindergarten days with grandma, grandpa, mom, dad and Karl standing atop the very same monument grinning like gangbusters. We had taken a trip out to California in grandma and grandpa’s RV in the early 1970s. I don’t remember much about that trip. I was very young. But I do remember the picture.
We continued on through Cortez, Colorado and found our home base for the next three nights –
the Garden Cottage on Willowtail Springs outside of Mancos, Colorado. This Bed and Breakfast is run by Lee and Peggy Cloy and is in the running for the best place we have stayed on this vacation. The Garden Cottage joined three other cabins housed on a 60 acre property with a catch-and-release bass stocked lake, canoes, birds, hiking trails, a hot tub, a black lab/chow mix named Rudy, cats, mule deer and bunnies.Our cottage was surrounded by flowers of all kinds – some of which had been cut and placed in
vases inside the cabin. The kitchen was well stocked with everything a person would need to cook a great meal – including a gas grill outside on a gravel picnic area. The inside of the cabin was basically one big room made out of 12 inch Walnut boards from Peggy’s grandfather’s homestead. The bathroom was the only room that had walls of any height, and even then, the walls did not reach the ceiling. The 
rest of the rooms were divided by half walls, split doors and partitions. The master bed was placed behind a wooden screen partition between the kitchen counter and the bed. The living area contained two chairs, a couch and a trundle bed. Off the living area was a deck with chairs and a hummingbird feeder allowing us to have a private view of the little guys as they fed each morning. Every wall had a window and the place was stuffed with antique furniture, books, art, movies and organic products.Lee and Rudy met us at the door of the cottage (we called when we were outside of Cortez) with a friendly smile and warm eyes. He gave us a tour of the trickier parts of the place and showed us a refrigerator stocked with eggs, fruit, organic jams, organic apple juice and milk. On the
kitchen counters were “a couple of things that Peggy picked up at the bakery this morning” – a loaf of whole wheat bread and two delicious looking huge bar cookies made at the Absolute Bakery and Cafe in Mancos, Colorado. In the bathroom were two white fluffy robes, shelves of soft looking red towels, and organic lotion, shower gel, soap, shampoo and conditioner.When the tour of the cabin was over, Lee took us on outside to
show us the dock, hot tub area, some of the trails and where the fishing poles and life vests were located. He introduced us to Rudy and explained that Rudy’s job in the family was to keep the deer and rabbits out of Peggy’s flowers and the bears, skunks, musk rats and mountain lions at bay. Rudy was a good dog.The air conditioner was on in the cabin. By the time we unloaded the car it was so cool outside we shut it down and opened the windows. While the fresh air invaded the spaces of the cabin, we
went back outside and took a short walk up the hill behind the barn to explore the little creek running just behind our windows in the woods and a brief boat tour around the lake in the quickly disappearing amount of light left in the day. After that, we headed back to the cabin for a wonderful night’s sleep among the peaceful sounds of the creek and the quiet sounds of the birds.
