Day 7 of the Alpine SoCal Rally in Lake Powell started like most others with nice weather and an even-nicer breakfast spread.  I think it’s safe now to grade our wagon master(s) David & Nicole Guhsé on their performance – I’ll give them an A+ !  And I think everyone here would agree; they’ve set a high standard for future rally wagonmasters to attain 🙂

Fruits…

Yogurts…

Bagels… which David toasted on the grill per each customers request.

Stilla even patted the hard-boiled eggs dry after David finished boiling them… now how’s that for attention to detail?  🙂

Our last breakfast together…

And here’s one last look at our week-long rally agenda for your viewing pleasure:

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After breakfast, everyone that had signed up for the Colorado River Float Trip, headed over to the Colorado River Discovery (CRD) Rafting Headquarters office in downtown Page.  Click link HERE for their website.

Thirty-one of us gathered in front of the CRD office for a quick briefing from a tour-guide before we boarded the bus.

We all boarded the Colorado River Discovery bus.  Our box lunches were waiting for us on the bus.

Our tour-guide explained how we were going to get to the bottom of the dam through a 2-mile long tunnel.

There was security at the entrance to the 2-mile tunnel.

We drove into the 2-mile long 22″- 6″ tall tunnel.

The tunnel was dark except for an occasional side-shaft that opened to the side of the canyon to let in a little light every so-often.  This is the part that Stilla didn’t want to experience, therefore she stayed back at the campground today to hang out with our little dog “Coach.”

And here we are coming out at the bottom of the Glen Canyon Dam (below).

View of the tunnel we had just came out of (below).

We all got off the bus, put on hard-hats and walked down the long ramp to our waiting boats.

Here we are at the bottom of the ramp.  They split us up into two groups, each with our own boat.

Here’s the group on my raft…

and here’s the other group heading down the river in front of us.

Information on the rafts is available at the CRD website: “Colorado River Discovery utilizes inflatable, motorized pontoon rafts. Comfortably carrying a maximum of 22 passengers and piloted by an experienced guide, these rafts are ideal for navigating the Colorado River between Glen Canyon Dam and Lees Ferry, Arizona.”

Views of the dam and bridge from our vantage point in the raft:

That’s the Carl Hayden Visitors Center (below center) perched on the edge of the cliff.  We visited that on Sunday when we took the dam tour.  Click HERE for that post if you missed it.

The spillway (below).  Hope no one opens that while we’re down here 😐

We headed down the river.  Our destination for the day is supposed to be Horseshoe Bend.  Then we’re going to turn around and motor back up to our waiting bus again.  I wrote about our visit to the Horseshoe Bend overlook in a previous post.  Click HERE if you missed that.  We’re also going to stop along the way to check out some petroglyphs.

We rounded the first bend and could no longer see the dam and bridge behind us.

The cliffs were amazing to see from below.

We passed a little waterfall.

Some fishermen in a boat we passed had just hooked a fish.  We floated past quickly and didn’t get to see him pull it in.

Alpiners – Orville & Mary Ann.  Remember them from my first posting at the Page, AZ Elks Lodge when we first got here last week?

We passed a couple of birds on our float, I think I heard someone say this a Great Blue Heron(?)

Yup… those are my feet…

Our boat-driver/tour-guide pointed out things along the way.

At times, you could see to the bottom of the river.

We eventually floated around a bend and saw other boats beached near the petroglyph site.

We pulled in next to the other boats and met up with the others in our Alpine group.

We hiked a few hundred yards up a path to view the petroglyphs.

Group photo of the SoCal Alpine group at the Petroglyph site near Horseshoe Bend on the Colorado River.

The petroglyphs:

Informational placard on the petroglyphs:

When we returned to the boats after viewing the petroglyphs, we found Bill Figge had just taken a dip in the river.

Brrrr… I don’t think he’ll do it again soon.

Yup… those are my feet again 🙂  The water is reportedly a consistent 47° because it comes from the bottom of Lake Powell through the dam.

We boarded our respective boats again to head down the river a little farther to Horseshoe Bend:

And here we are coming around Horseshoe Bend…

If you look closely, you can see the people at the top looking down on us from the cliff edges…

We rounded Horseshoe Bend.  This is the view to the west.

Shortly after rounding the Horseshoe Bend, we turned around and motored quickly back up river…

Here’s the north looking view of Horseshoe Bend after we turned around.  The tourists are on the cliffs to the right side now.

We motored past the petroglyph site.

And finally we could see the dam again.

Both of our boats paused below the dam for a bit while our respective tour-guides gave us a little more information about the area and answered questions.

We thanked our tour-guides, disembarked from our boats, and walked back up the long ramp to the bus.  The bus took us back out of the canyon through the 2-mile long tunnel again.

I highly recommend this raft trip to anyone visiting the area.  The only thing I wish we could have done, is to float all the way down to Lee’s Ferry and then bus back from there.  Remember my post about our drive to Lee’s Ferry?  Oh well, we have to save something for next time, right?  🙂

View of the bridge from above.  Our campground is on the horizon to the right in the picture below.

When we retuned to the campground, it wasn’t long before it was BBQ time!  Everyone broke out their grills and set them up at our get-together site.  Do you think we have enough grills?  🙂

The grills were all lined up dress-right-dress.

It wasn’t long before the table was filled with everyone’s favorite dishes:

And the grills were fired up:

I didn’t hear anyone complain… especially since we all cooked what we brought ourselves 🙂

Another beautiful sunset for our final day of the rally…

We continued socializing after dark with the help of Orville & Mary Ann’s ‘Bonfire in a Can’.  Link HERE.  Yes, we bought one too 🙂  Thanks Mary Ann!

And another fine Alpine Coach SoCal Rally is in the history books!

Now all we have to do is pack all this up again… uuggh 🙁  We decided to stay another day (Wednesday) to help Dave & Nicole clean up and return the tables and chairs… but I’ll save that for my next posting.

Stay tuned for our next adventure…