Burntwood Lake Lodge

In chronological order

34 inches

 38 inches

 44 inches (yes! fish of a lifetime)

 35 inches

 39 inches

 34 inches

35 inches

 Walleye were plentiful.  There were ALOT of Walleye.  Can catch hundreds in a day if you want to put in the time

 The walleye were tasty.  The classic North Woods shore lunch

Happy 4th of July!

Southwest 2013 - Slots, Water, Rocks, and Heat

This year our National Park rotation brought us back to the Southwest.  Amazing rocks in the desert.  And ton's of slot canyons, my favorite.  We were able to hike a bunch of them.  We really love the picture of the 4 of us taken near the bottom of Lower Antelope Canyon on fathers day, breath taking.

Following is a quick overview of the trip.  Great images for wonderful places are presented in the subsequent blogs.

It began with a flight to Las Vegas.  Waiting to get on the plane at O'Hare.

First stop in Vegas, In-n-Out double doubles.  Yummy!

First stop in Zion National Park.  I have really come to love this place.

Slot canyon #1, the Virgin River Narrows.  The granddaddy of all slot canyons.  The water flow was the lowest ever and we were able to hike about 4 or 5 miles in.  

Next stop Page Az.  Staging area for Lake Powell.  We visited Lower Antelope Canyon for the first time ever.  Fantastic!  But no sunbeams.  That would come later in the week.

Then we rented a houseboat on Lake Powell with some friends.  Fantastic, but working the houseboat was more complicated than we anticipated.

Amazing views everywhere you look.

You can see Bart out there in an inflatable kayak.

Final destination was Rainbow Bridge.

Arguably the biggest natural arch in the world.

Upper Antelope Canyon was our first destination after Lake Powell.  Summer Solstice and sunbeams in all their glory.

Next stop, Monument Valley.  Sunrise was breathtaking (from the balcony of our room)

On to Moab and Arches National Park.  I love the the town and National Park.

We hiked up to Delicate Arch

Love the Fiery Furnace Ranger led hike.

Bart at Turret Arch.

Next we went to Grand Staircase Excalente National Monument.  Risked heat exhaustion with a hike at Spooky Canyon.

Last stop Bryce National Park.  Wonderful place. One of my favorite hikes.  Down through wall street and back out via the Queens Garden.  The picture below looks back up from Wall Street.

Looking down into Wall Street.

The balanced rock is the same, but Alex is much changed.

Diane is als a big fan of Bryce.

The colors of the hoo-doos are amazing.

Zion

First stop is Zion National Park.  About a 3 hour drive from Las Vegas.

The carved colored sandstone is fantastic

Lots of hidden petroglyphs.

At the entrance to Keyhole Canyon.

We spent a day tubing on the Virgin River.  Water flow was too low.

But the low water levels/flow made for fantastic Virgin River hike up the Narrows.

We went much deepedr into the canyon than ever before.  Fantastic!

At the opening of Orderville Canyon.  Stupid Costco flash card gliched out and I lost a bunch of cool pictures.  Lesson learned.

Selfie in the Narrows.

Lower Antelope

Doesn't really look like a canyon.  At least not something you can hike into.

But it is possible to squeeze into an amazing canyon.  Treat on Fathers Day.

Diane drops into the canyon.  They had a lot of stairs to help out.

Very mellow day without may other people, which was fantastic.

I like the way that Diane's blue skirt reflects on the sandstone.

Very narrow in some places.

More open at the bottom.  Breathtaking everywhere.

Dinosaur footprint, cool.