After Henry showing us his amazing skills at Google Earth

(even I couldn’t use the program as fast as he could), we headed out to Side Step Canyon, something Andre and I were looking for last year when Henry first showed us pictures. Andre got the GPS coordinates and we drove up on the Cottonwood Canyon Road to find it.
It was easy to find and easy to get down into, but I wasn’t feeling so good at the start and had an upset stomach. We explored the canyon and there were more mushrooms and hoodoos than we could count. All of a sudden, it starts clouding up and there are rain clouds all around us. We decide to hurry up to avoid any flash floods. As we continue on the Cottonwood Canyon Road toward Escalante, we have time to stop for me to look for shark teeth.
Millions of years ago this area was covered in water coming in from Canada where the Cockscomb Fault is at. Henry told us of a place where he goes and finds shark teeth. He said the first one is hard to find, but once you find one, the rest are easy. He was right, especially finding it on gray-colored sand. Also the teeth wouldn’t be laying flat to see, you really had to look for them.
It had rained a couple of days before, which was perfect to find fossils. I looked and looked, but at first could only find fragments of seashells. Then as I noticed some footprints from a couple of days before, I followed them and all of a sudden, I found my first shark tooth and it was laying flat out on the ground.
I was so surprised and happy to find one on my own. After that we had to leave because the clouds were closer and we couldn’t be stuck on the Cottonwood Canyon Road. It’s mostly clay and when it gets wet, you can’t drive on it.
We try to stop by and drive up Brigham Plains Road, but our Jeep Commander couldn’t make the steep turns. So we turned back and walk on up. At the top on Brigham Plains is a pond and since it had just rained I knew there would be triops in the pond. Triops are living fossils, like sand dollars, and they come alive if there’s water. You can buy triops eggs which are called sea monkeys, but they’re a smaller species I think. Last year we saw them and had no idea what the creatures were. I showed them on my video camera at the Kanab visitor center and the guy there said they were triops or people usually call them brine shrimp.
Back on Cottonwood Canyon Road, we drive on through where it’s called Candy Land, because of the colorful layers in the rocks. From there we stop by and see Grosvernor Arch, which we passed last year. Then we finally came to passing, I believe the Paria Wash which the BLM created a detour around it for cars.
It was a dip with some water in the bottom. Christoph went to check how deep it was. He signaled OK and I was driving.

I put the Jeep in 1st gear and floored it. Water and mud went up on the windshield and as I passed a car on the other side the people were surprised to see that. Too bad we didn’t get a picture like last year in Colorado.

Off of Cottonwood Canyon Road and onto Scenic Highway 12 towards Escalante. Andre drove while I ate my much needed salad I bought at Safeway in Page, Arizona. We’re now on our way to Hole in the Rock Road to camp at Devil’s Garden.
We arrive at sunset and Andre is off taking pictures and figuring our the best place for sunrise photos of the arch. We set up the tent again, heated up canned soup, which I didn’t eat any, because I was still feeling sick to my stomach and couldn’t even enjoy my Fat Tire beer. We also met one other person there from Utah taking 3-4 hour exposures of the night sky in Devil’s Garden.