5 December 2017
Yesterday (Sunday) was a big day, plus one of the best of the trip so far.
Horseshoe Bend
We started early with a short drive to Horseshoe Bend, where the mighty Colorado River makes an epic U-turn. The viewing area (a 10 minute walk over a sand hill from the car park) is quite amazing. There is literally a sheer rock cliff, with no fences, and people just get as close as they dare to take their photos. A few people asked me to take their photo for them on their phones, and for each one I begged them to be careful near the edge and not to step back at all. Some people were even sitting on the edge, which is just too stupid to put into words.
Nicole doesn’t like heights and so Nicole and Katelyn decided to have a quick look from afar and then wait around elsewhere.
I was able to get a photo that I’m really happy with.
We have now got to the point where people on tour are just saying, “I won’t try to take a good photo — I’ll just get a copy of Steve’s.” Oh, the pressure …
Antelope Canyon
We then all returned to the car park, hopped on the bus, and headed off to make the next tour. Then around five minutes into the drive Katelyn realised she had left her iPhone behind, so our CEO kindly turned the bus around so we could look for it. Quite a number of people hopped off the bus to help out with the search, which was really fantastic. We searched the toilets, the car park, the walk way — all to no avail. We all assumed it must have fallen into the compost toilet — a very undignified way for an iPhone to end its useful life. ☹️
I was sure that Katelyn would be very upset, however she was amazing in how strong and positive she was. Nicole and I (and everyone else on the bus) were extremely proud of her.
We then raced off for our guided tour of Antelope Canyon. A few days earlier in Las Vegas I had visited one of Peter Lik’s galleries (a world famous Australian photographer) where I saw some absolutely AMAZING images. It noted on the wall that he has sold a photo of Antelope Canyon titled “Ghost” for $2.6M! So I certainly had a high water mark to aim at with my photography when we entered the canyon.
Native Americans guide the tours, and ours was a real character. The canyon had some very steep metal stairs to enter, and once in there it is almost magical the way the curved rock walls bounce light around. You just meander along through all sorts of passageways, and then at the end climb a ladder and appear out of a narrow rock crack into the open. Miriam from our tour group made the comment that it was like being born again!
Monument Valley
Then we drove into the Navajo Nation reservation — by far the largest in the USA — to visit Monument Valley. We had a guided tour with a local Navajo person, who was very interesting and informative. We did a bus tour around the valley, and for the third day in a row we were presented with some absolutely jaw dropping and majestic rock formations.
Many movies have been filmed here, from John Wayne to Back to the Future and even Star Wars.
We also got to see inside a Hogan — a Navajo mud and timber house — which was fascinating. Then we finished the tour with a Navajo Taco (delicious!) and some song and dance presentations. Katelyn even got to stand up front as they sang a birthday song, plus also presented her with a handmade bracelet. Lovely!
The iPhone twist
We then headed to our hotel and checked in. We hadn’t had any connectivity all day (AT&T, lift your game!) and the free Wi-Fi at the hotel was extremely shaky. As soon as we got into the room I checked my email — I had put a label on the back of our iPhones and my iPad with a name and email address. I straight away saw an email with the subject “Your phone”, but it took another full minute for the email content to download. When it did, we could see that it was from a gentleman from St-Petersburg in Russia (Damir), who was in the USA for business and had taken the time to visit Horseshoe Bend. He had found Katelyn’s phone and, not wanting to leave it where it might be stolen, took it back to his hotel who were keeping it in their safe.
Word spread to the other rooms and everyone was very, very excited and happy for Katelyn! Larissa even brought down a bottle of champagne to our room to share with us to celebrate the special twist of fate. What a wonderful gesture and a lovely way to end an incredibly big (and great) day! 🍾😃
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