Day 4 - An old, old world

After eggs cooked to order, we boarded our rafts with Kevin as our guide today.  We enjoyed hearing about Bessie and Glen Hyde (guide Brad wrote a book about them).  He is more nonchalant about the whole rowing thing and once I calmly pointed out a large rock we were headed into!  I soon learned to trust him as I had Derick and Matt our first two day's guides.  

We stopped for a small hike up a narrows canyon.  It was spectacular!  Matt, also a geologist, stepped off the billions of years as he told us of the creation of the world. When he got most of the way down the canyon, he said all of mankind's time on earth covered his big toenail.  I guess our lifetime is just a clipping!  It was impressive to think about.  I did think about the grand preparation of our beautiful world that took billions of years and that same Creator God knows my name and my needs and my gratitude.  What a mind expanding experience.

Mike and Leslie 

Matt giving our geology lesson

We saw big horn sheep most days.  I just don't know how they got there or how they go somewhere else.

Another beautiful, clean waterfall to play in.

We had a lot of rapids in the morning and stopped for a lunch of taco wraps and Mark was not so thrilled with beans for lunch.  I liked them.

The scenery is so amazing, there are not words to describe the majestic rock formations, everything is a superlative.  

We came to a rapid that the guides needed to scout out and we stopped and climbed up to check it out while they talked amongst themselves about the best technique to use and how to best shoot the rapid.  This makes me nervous, thinking they are nervous.  But they do a great job and we shot through the rapid and it was so much fun.  We pulled over right after and it was to our surprise, our camp for the night.  It was an even longer sandy beach than last night.  Mark quickly scouted out our spot next to the river away from everyone else.  The only problem was it was on the way to the portable bathroom!  Oh, and another problem was that there was just enough room for our sleeping mats to fit between the water and the rocks.  The water rose higher in the evening and as we went to bed, I had visions of floating down the river in the middle of the night.  By the time we woke up, the water had receded several feet. It is regulated at the Glen Canyon Dam for the electrical power needs of the LA and Las Vegas areas.  Lots of AC going this time of year.

We had an Asian fusion chicken meal with really good corn bread for dinner with ginger cake for dessert.  Ted and Suzie celebrated their 22nd wedding anniversary with all of us!  

With our little beach spot we were the only ones who kept cool all night.  The stars were bright and shiny but then the clouds moved in and it was a dark, dark night.