Page, Arizona!

     So far we are loving our time in this desert town. It's hard to beat small town, warm weather (50's), big skies, and canyons, mesas, and buttes anyway you turn!    

      Page was founded in 1957 as a housing community for workers and their families during the construction of nearby Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River. Its 17-square-mile site was obtained in a land exchange with the Navajo Nation. The city is perched atop Manson Mesa at an elevation of 4,300 feet.

     After the dam was completed in the 1960s, the city grew steadily to today's population of over 9,000. Because of the new roads and bridge built for use during construction, it has become the gateway to the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Lake Powell, attracting more than 3 million visitors per year. Page is also the home of two of the largest electrical generation units in the western United States. Glen Canyon Dam has a 1,288,000-kilowatt capacity when fully online. The other power plant to the southeast is the Navajo Generating Station, a coal-fired steam plant with an output capability of 2,250,000 kilowatts.

                                                                                                                               -Wikipedia

Literally, our backyard!

      We really are out here in the middle of nowhere. The closet town worth mentioning is at least 70 miles away and they don't even have a Wal-mart! But we have a Safeway, Wal-mart, Napa, and a hardware store so what more do we need?!

Page Lake Powell Campground where we are staying.

It's nice. And at only $410 a month, much cheaper then we expected in this tourist town.

     I don't think that groceries are noticeably higher here then other areas but they get you anywhere they can! Sales tax in Arizona is 9.9%. And we went out to eat last week at a Mexican restaurant and while we got only 3 meals and water, our bill was still over $40. The food was amazing and we had lots of it but co-worker told Eldon that's one of the cheaper places around here!

We finally gave them their Christmas presents :)

The Glen Canyon Bridge and Dam deserves a post of it's own!

     We feel perfectly safe here and Eldon is loving his job as the ICU nurse. It's a VERY small hospital and he is thrilled to be floated to ER until they admit an ICU patient, then he goes back to his unit and works there :). As with other town we've stayed in near reservations, there is lots of drunkenness but there's also policeman and security every way you turn. At Wal-mart they will randomly have someone at the door to check your cart and receipt before you leave. And the library requires you to use your library card and "check out" the train cars and toy dishes if you want to play with them.........at the library! It mostly makes us laugh but it's also sad that such measures have to be taken.

     We've done a number of hikes since we're here and the children are loving it since there is almost always rock scrambling involved. Prepare to be spammed with beautiful pictures :).