We return to the factory outlet where we bought our cloths on the way up to return a pullover.
In the afternoon we head south towards LA, where we see the big fires in Rancho Cucamonga. We take some pictures and continue to San Diego. We get a room again at the Extended Stay of America and are happy that those fires didn’t reach San Diego.

We leave Page on Highway 89 south to Flagstaff. Shortly before Flagstaff we take a turn right and follow another gravel road uphill where we have seen some bright golden spots that we need to see from close to determine what it is. We soon find out that it’s from the golden leaves of some trees (birches). After another oil change incl. the transmission oil for our car we continue from Flagstaff to Barstow where we arrive late.

Odometer: 116… (about 30 miles more than yesterday)
Marco again didn’t sleep well and is getting up early. I’m getting out of bed slowly once Marco returns from his first breakfast. We take it easy today: at around 10:30 we go to the beach until about 1:30, then we have a Javalanche and later we take a nap. For dinner we have a delicious prime rib at Peppers.

We enjoy a few more relaxing days in Page and around Lake Powell.

Odometer: 116…
Marco gets up shortly after 6:00 after another lousy night of sleep. I sleep until after 7:00. It’s after 10:00 when we leave the hotel to drive out to Big Water to get some more information on a walk down Wiregrass Canyon from the Bureau of Land management. We then head 4.6 miles into Smoky Mountain Road once more and park our car near the sign of Wiregrass Canyon. From there we start our hike down the narrow and washed out canyon. The cliffs around us are changing as we walk along. The further down we get the wider the canyon and the more briers (thorny bushes) we have to pass. It would have helped if we had been wearing closed shoes and long pants. After much more than 2 hours of walking we finally see the lake. To have good view of it though we climbed up some rocky hills. Not wearing a watch we had no idea what time it was and how long we had been walking. What we knew though was that we didn’t want to walk back through all these thorny bushes. Therefore, we decided to climb the rim and walk on the flat instead of in the canyon. Not having to walk all the curves of the creek might be even faster as well. So, we are walking and walking seemingly endless. As the sun is near sunset and we are facing high cliffs where ever we turn the situation is becoming frightening especially also because we don’t have more than a few sips of water left. We speed up even more and start walking around the cliffs. What a big relieve when we see that we can make it to the street before dark. Once at the street Marco heads to the right where our car must be parked with 99.9 percent certainty and I head to the left with the spare key for that 0.1 percent. After probably about another miles walk Marco is coming up from behind me with the car and the well deserved water. The sun had just set and not even half an hour later it’s dark. As exhausted as we are, we drive straight to Bella Napoli for a quick dinner before even taking a shower.

Odometer: 116…
Basically same as yesterday only that today we have a very nice Javalanche coffee at Wahweap Marina and go for some fajitas to Fiesta Mexicana.