March 5, 2021 Lunch- Chicken Salad Sandwich at Lake Powell. Dinner - Grilled Ruby Trout with Rice and Kale at the Lodge at Bryce Canyon 

We awakened at 5:30 this morning to get ready to leave for Bryce Canyon because it was an 8 1/2 hour drive.  We drove west on I - 40 to Gallup and turned north and wound our way through the Navajo Nation through Ganado, Chinle, and Kayenta to Page, Arizona. At Page we turned north and drove past Zion to Bryce Canyon.

We packed up our charcuterie, chicken salad, marinated asparagus, fruit salad, hummus, pasta salad, beers, wine, brie,      Dubliner and pita chips.  We try to be self-reliant when it comes to food, especially when so many restaurants have closed during the pandemic.

I made three bagel sandwiches with cream cheese, Gravad lax, and a slice of sweet onion.

We ate the bagel vsandwiches as we drove to Page.

When we arrived at Page we drove across the high bridge that crosses the Colorado River above the deep gorge at  Glen Canyon that has been filled with the Glen Canyon Dam to create Lake Powell. We stopped at the visitors Center that was closed to look at Glen Canyon Dam, which was larger than I though it would be at least 150 dizzying feet down to the floor of Glen Canyon.   It was nearly 2:00 so after we looked at the dam we returned to our route and drove north along the west side of the lake looking for a place to eat lunch.  Soon we saw a high vista point overlooking Lake Powell and the dam slightly up stream from the dam.  We drove to the top

 of the hill to the end of the parking lot where there was an awning and two concrete benches with a fabulous view of the lake and the dam.

We carried and placed our picnic basket, ice chest, and bag of dry food on one of the benches and sat and ate chicken salad, hummus, marinated asparagus with Gruner Vitliner.  The panoramic vista was spectacular.

After lunch we drove straight to the Lodge at Bryce Canyon National Park.  We drove in just before sunset when the red rocks were ablaze with golden light.  

Apparently we arrived on the re-opening day of the Lodge and everything was somewhat chaotic, but the good news was that there were very few tourists, so we were able to change our reservation from one of the newer motel style outlying lodges to a newly remodeled suite in the Lodge dating from 1925.

The suite was furnished with the vintage furniture from 1925.

After we checked in we looked at the menu of the restaurant that had just opened today also and decided to order the bison stew with a cheddar cheese muffin and the grilled rainbow trout with rice mixed with kale and carrots to be picked up at 7:30 we went up to the room and rested for a while and then went down to pick up our food.  Since the restaurant was not serving wine, we decided to eat dinner in the room with a glass of wine.

The trout was lovely, breaded lightly with cornmeal and sautéed in butter.  I liked the risotto rice with chopped kale.  Suzette did not eat much but did cut up the cottage fried potato slices and added them to the stew.

Here are photos.

Both portions were large, so we decided to eat the trout and save the stew for tomorrow evening’s dinner.

I poured a glass of Gruner Vitliner for me and a Pinot Noir for Suzette.

We were full.  At 9:00 we decided to go star gaze so we drove up the road to a pull out where we could see a large swatch of the night sky.  I have to admit that this was the best night sky I have ever seen.  It was a clear sky with no moon light.  We could see the Milky Way very clearly and identified two or three constellations.

After about fifteen minutes we had seen enough, so went back to the Lodge and bed.

Today we drove 8 1/2 hours and covered a lot of ground, but had an abundance of sights and food to keep us excited.

Bon Appetit