May 11 2021 Day 24: , lake power Page, AZ,

The internet speed is so slow that I cannot download the images. 网速太慢，无法上传照片。

今天去划独木舟5英里。我和女儿一个独木舟。因为连续几天高强度的运动，划完我手都抬不起来了。昨天晚上痛了一个晚上，今天休息一天。

we went to kayak today and did 5 miles. My daughter and I were in two person kayak. Since we did huge exercises since Zion national park, I couldn't left my arms after it and both of my arms were hurt so much during last night. So today, we decide to have a rest day.

I’ve been thinking about the meaning of vacations. So many of the activities people are excited about on vacations are predetermined by others, the road blazed before by many others, the actions they do just a Simon says by the tour guide.

We kayaked through Lake Powell to Lower Antelope Canyon and hiked through the narrow rocks. The Lake is a human-made reservoir of water. The canyon, by contrast, is natural. One sparkling blue water, nearly unbelievably colored, the other dry red rock, also visually fantastic. Is it simply the freshness of seeing something we hadn’t done before?

Seeing them on the same journey provided more contrast but also blurred the lines. The rock was stained by the calcium of the water to the high tide line. The water itself, though the human-made component, could arguably be more unpredictable. Our tour guide explained that black scratches along the rock above our heads were from jet skis in previous years. The Lake had receded more this year than decades before. Unpredictable. Meanwhile, the rock was solid as ever, but humans marks were all over it. The walls were covered with words written in the dried mud of the adobe and the path was rounded by footsteps.

I think the hard work of kayaking, followed by exploration of the canyons, imitates the adventure-and-arrival model of earlier trailblazers. Of course, we were the second tour in a well-established company in an area where millions of people had gone before. Everyone knows that. We had to get our feet wet with kayaking, and rowing was unexpectedly difficult and straining. The work in our bodies was rewarded by the natural wonders, just like trailblazers who stumbled into the mountaintop clearing and looked across the valley of promised land. However, unlike those trailblazers, we don’t have any real risk involved. We know we will end at our RV at the end of the day. Why do we spend money on this and use our days given off of work to do these things and call it living?

I have no answers. I watch other people for their behaviors that betray their own answers. Our tour guide, an energetic 20-something man named Britton, ran kayaking trips five days a week, sometimes twice a day. He said “I try to pretend every time is my first time, even though I know every corner,” as he skips around the rocks on a cliff edge above us. For him, I believe he loves the canyons. He finds freshness in it. He explains to us the geography of the swirling rock produced by water bringing in sand and the straight lines from wind bringing in sand and you don’t know that much about geography unless you love the rock formations. I don’t think he could sustain this job unless he loved the air around the lake and the canyons somehow.

For the three young couples on the trip, I sensed a more simple banality than Britton, although this was their first time in the area. All of them carried cameras and took pictures during their hike and on the lake. Pictures are for other people to witness your own living. Why would you need pictures for yourself? Memories more than suffice. I think the banality came from the adventuring-through-a-window. You’re watching through a window because you’re always thinking of how someone else views what you’re doing when you’re taking pictures. Maybe I’m projecting, and these couples truly enjoy it. But when you are the trail blazer, why would you want to be subject to fifteen minute time frames and life jackets?