Lake Powell Day 1

May 4, 2009

We had a buffet breakfast at The View restaurant for $11 per person. I think the price is okay considering that our pancake breakfast at Pancake Haus cost about the same thing. We then proceeded to Goulding’s Lodge, a historic hotel across the highway from Monument Valley. I originally booked our room here, but I’m awfully glad that I changed my mind and booked at The View instead. Goulding’s looked old and dilapidated.

We then left for Lake Powell or what is called the Glen Powell National Recreation Area. By the way, both Monument Valley and Lake Powell are in Arizona. We had to remember to adjust our time from Utah time. Utah is one hour ahead of California while Arizona is the same as California.
We toured the Glen Canyon Dam this afternoon. It is 16 feet shorter than Hoover Dam. Lake Powell’s main purpose is to store and ration water to several dams down the stream, including Hoover. It also sells electricity to hundreds of electric companies, but not to ones in California. It was a nice informative tour.

We then checked in at the Lake Powell Resort and Marina which is right on Lake Powell. It’s a really nice resort and we’re glad we booked here as we could just go outside and be right on the water. One of the first things we did was do our laundry. So we loaded the washer and sat at a picnic table overlooking the lake to wait for the washer to get done. After we placed our clothes in the dryer, we decided to go back to our room. When Dek went back to get our clothes, he found the dryer door open and our clothes still very wet. We suspected that somebody took our clothes out, dried his/her clothes, and then put our clothes back in. What people do to save 50 cents!

We were lucky today in terms of food. We had a good breakfast at The View. For lunch, we asked the person manning the Visitor Center at the dam for a recommendation. So we drove to Ranch House Grill. I ordered a BLTA (BLT and Avocado) and Dek ordered spicy chicken sandwich. Both were very good. For dinner we ate at the resort’s restaurant. I ordered Pasta Primavera and Dek ordered a hamburger. Since both were excellent, we supposed the dessert would also be great...so we ordered pear crème brulee for dessert.