Rain and flooding

It rained all night and then rained all day today. Our plan had been to drive 65 miles to the Needles district of Canyonlands. The wind and rain were pretty fierce, but we had stopped and talked to a ranger who said we would be fine.

At our first turn off we had to drive through a little water flowing across the road. Then at another place the water was deeper than Phil expected and our pickup was bathed in a red muddy water wave.

By the time we were about 10 miles in, we were getting alerts about flash flooding. We stopped at Newspaper Rock where there are many petroglyphs from 3 different tribes of peoples over the years.

It didnt seem like the rain was getting worse so we continued on down the Cottonwood Creek canyon looking at spontaneous waterfalls and amazing formations of buttes and mesas and spires. As we got closer to the park we could see heavy rain falling ahead and Phil was getting alerts on his phone to "move to higher ground immediately " and "flash flooding in your area" so we turned around and started back. We did see several large flocks of wild turkey though.

We had lunch at a pizza place and came back to the hotel to write postcards. Tomorrow we head on the Natural Bridges Nat Monument. We hope to visit Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelle this weekend.Read more