We left the Farmington, NM Elks Lodge by 11 AM to make our way to Page, AZ for the upcoming Lake Powell Alpine Coach Rally.  We made it as far as Shiprock, NM and ended up spending the next two (2) hours in traffic 🙁  Our top speed through Shiprock was 3 mph.

It seems that today was the big parade for the Northern Navajo Nation Fair which is an annual event.  According to their website; “The Shiprock Northern Navajo Nation Fair is the the Oldest and Most Traditional of the Navajo Fairs.  It is held each fall (1-4 October) in the Navajo Land where the Navajo people of the Four Corners come to celebrate the year’s harvest with a community celebration.”

Now, all this wouldn’t be so bad, except the nice bartender at the Farmington Elks Lodge even warned us about this event when we shared our travel plans the day before, but I figured; “How bad could it be?” And we didn’t try an alternate route.  One of these days I’ll learn to listen to people 😐 Oh well, I just kept reminding myself that I was retired and that seemed to make it better 🙂

The traffic moved so slowly, that Stilla was even able to walk the dog while we rolled down the street.

Some of the local kids sold drinks to the grid-locked motorists.

We finally made it to the other side of town around 2 PM and were able to clear the traffic and head northwest out of town.

View of Shiprock.  (Wikipedia link HERE and more Google Images HERE).

The route we took was simply awesome, with stunning views and rock formations galore.  Follow along:

Here’s the view as we got closer to Page, AZ:

Lake Powell in the background (below):

When we finally pulled into Elks Lodge 2498 in Page, AZ we saw another Alpine Coach in the parking lot!  Meet Orville McGee & Mary Ann Ratliff 🙂

They’ll be attending the Alpine Coach Rally as well 🙂  I took a picture of them in front of our Coaches after Stilla parked.  Yup, that’s what I said – Stilla backed the Urban Escape Vehicle (UEV) into the open spot next to their Coach while I ground-guided.  She did a great job! We strategically parked nose to nose so we could maximize the available space with the tight RV sites here.

Orville snapped a (rare) picture of the two of us in front of the UEV.

We got set up in our spot, you know – the usual stuff; jacks down, slides out, satellite dish up, rolled out the throw rugs, unfolded the coffee table, put out a couple lawn chairs, etc.,

Then we went into the lodge with Orville and Mary Ann.  The Grand Exalted Ruler (GER) “Bill” greeted us at the door and introduced us to all the lodge members.  He also presented us with a lodge pin.  Pretty cool.

The lodge was having an auction and raffle.  Lots of activity going on!  We had a couple adult beverages.  When we went back to the bar for our second drink, we found out this lodge doesn’t offer a free second drink to visiting members as is customary in most other lodges we’ve visited.

Also, The Elks website says the sites are $15 per night, but when we went to pay, we were told it’s $20 per night.  And, oh by-the-way; we’re on 30 Amp, not 50 as the website touted.  Oh well, at least it’s good 30 Amp power unlike our last spot at the Farmington Lodge where we had low voltage and couldn’t run one of the air conditioners.

Here’s an early morning view of the Elks Lodge I took while walking little “Coach”:

This view (below) shows the RV parking spots next to the lodge:

And here’s our morning view from the (currently) empty spots next to us:

We’ll spend a couple nights here at the Elks Lodge and then move over (Monday) to the Lake Powell Alpine Coach Rally to the Wahweap RV Park & Campground.  The Rally officially starts on Wednesday (7 Oct), but we reserved a couple days early so we can help (hosts) David & Nicole Guhse get everything set up.

Stay tuned…

PS  The dash air conditioner is still working great.  Thanks again Mike!  And also, no more squeaks and rattles… it seems I got them all worked out (for now).  I blogged about fixing the squeaks and rattles in previous posts; (HERE) and (HERE).