Oooohhhhh Aaaaaah! Various friends told us that a stop at Antelope Canyon was a MUST since we were going to be in the area! Well, um, they were correct!! Antelope Canyon was a two and a half hour drive from the South Rim of The Grand Canyon. We planned this adventure while my friend, Dearie, was visiting because we figured if she was going to make the effort to fly out and rent a car and a room at the Lodge for a week - the least we could do was to treat her to some amazingness. So 2+ months ahead of time we secured tickets (during the "prime time viewing hours") to Upper Antelope Canyon. And...it did NOT disappoint!
However, I've got to fess up that it wasn't ALL puppies and unicorns (as they say) because trying to find the dang place when under constant threat of forfeiting our $$$ if we were late was crazy-ass-stressful! First of all, as we strategized our departure the day before we had to clarify what time zone Antelope Canyon was in. You see, Arizona is in the Mountain Time Zone but they don't observe daylight savings time - so they are actually 3 hrs behind the east coast. However, when looking at maps it was beyond confusing as to what time zone Page, AZ and, more specifically, the canyon in the Navajo Aboriginal Reserve was in! I emailed our tour the night before to shed some light on this issue and they said they were the same as the Grand Canyon, but that didn't help our stress-o-meter when we were en route because our phones and GPS kept telling us differently. And throughout said stressful ride I kept getting text messages (aka "Nasty Grams" as Karl likes to call them) to NOT BE LATE for our 45min prior to departure time check in requirement or our $600 worth of tickets would be VOIDED with no refund! So, we arrived at the check-in point with 5 minutes to spare and I sprinted up to the booth in the desert heat to be told I was in the wrong place. The nice guy told me where to find the confusing address and I texted ahead telling them we were 8 minutes up the road (as I prayed to all things holy that they would honor our tickets). Luckily, we arrived a few minutes late by their standards, but still waaayyyy early for our 11:40AM departure time with no threat of losing our spot and to observe that they don't even enforce the Nasty Gram Policy!!! (#^*+!)...
So, aside from THAT debacle - Antelope Canyon was an amazing treat. Words don't do it justice, so I'll just have to let the photos do the talking. First of all - I hope you noticed on this first/cover photo for this post that you are looking at "an antelope" in the formation! There is also a heart included here in the pics - not to mention the cool photo Roger, our guide, took of Karl and I kissing inside a heart! Our guide was awesome with helping us with photos and although the tour was a bit hurried he made sure we knew how/where to get the best pictures.
You should also note that the 2nd to last picture was from our walk out of the canyon as we were headed back to our transportation (the vehicle that our Navajo guide drove which seated about 8 passengers in the back of each covered vehicle in a caravan out to the canyons). And then the final picture I have included of what appears to be nothing but dirt is, in fact, the view of where the canyons are UNDERNEATH!!!!! (Yuppers - MIND BLOWING!!!!!!!)…
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