Page Arizona Balloon Festival, Saturday & Sunday, Nov. 3 & 4, 2012

Who would have thought we would be in Page, Arizona the very weekend that they had a Balloon-Type of Festival?  We lucked out!  Here are some of the balloons as they lit them up on Saturday night. 

 

This is my humorous shot of the local bar.  (Get it-Dam on the Colorado to make Lake Powell?)

 

 

 

Sunday, as we went to church, we were able to see the balloons flying again, this time with the backdrop of those beautiful cliffs & mountains.

How often do you think you could see balloons with this kind of beautiful backdrop!  It was incredible!  What a special treat for us!

 

I guess the view would be pretty good from up there! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one is my favorite, Smokey the bear!

Lake Powell, Nov 3, 2012 Part 2

More wonderful photos of this gorgeous lake, rocks and mountains!

I think this formation was called "the cathedral".

This one, I am pretty sure, was called the "castle". 

We are headed back into a cove to walk & see the Rainbow Bridge National Monument.  This captain had to manuever his boat through a narrow passage.

The views in here were spectacular!

 

 

 

 

 

Do you like the reflection and the waves from the boat?

There actually was a Blue Heron back in here.  He did not want to pose as so many do for me in Florida.

For some reason this water was green.  There were fish in it, too!

Here is the boat anchored at the end of a long pier.

We had to walk about a mile back to the Rainbow Bridge.  It was a beautiful walk.

This is our first sighting of the "Bridge", which to me looked more like an arch.  Guess that is why they call it Rainbow Bridge.

We are getting closer!

Now, doesn't that look like an arch, not a bridge!

When we were taking the above photo, this little girl was there, waiting for her family to come.  She was so cute, I had to get a photo!  

Lake Powell Nov 3, 2012, Part 1

We started our trip of 5 hrs on the lake from the Waheep Marina.

I took over 300 photos of the structures around the lake.  Every scene was different.  This almost looks like it could be on the moon.

The moon was still in the sky as we left at about 7:30 am.

 

This boat shows the immensity of these rock formations.

Ditto here!  The rock on the left is a mesa; the one on the right is a butte.

The rocks come in all sorts of shapes.

This is a famous landmark.  It is a butte because the top is shorter than the sides.  I will show you a mesa later.

 

 

 

 

This close-up shows an Egyptian-type statue in the rock.  At least that is what I see.  What do you see?

 

 

Later you will see the Natural Bridge.  These are the beginnings of more "natural bridges."

Some are round or arch like and others are rectangular.

Here I am with my camera on the boat.  Later on the weather got much warmer.

The earphones have the captain telling us all about what we are seeing.

The red color of the rocks comes from iron oxide.  Here we can see a lot of green, which may have some copper, especially the eroded rocks.