When we left Page Arizona on Tuesday we drove by Navajo Power which is a large modern coal fired power generation plant that is owned and operated by the Navajo Nation. Their coal is mined at Black Mesa Mine on the Navajo Nation Reservation and transported on a private Electric railroad which runs for a distance of 78 miles. The railroad uses electric locomotives that were built by GE back in the mid-70's specifically for this purpose. These locomotives have a boom on top that goes up to electric wires above the rails, much like street cars do in some large cities. These trains run 24/7 to keep the Navajo Power generation plant supplied with coal. The coal is mined in Kayenta Arizona, then transported by a conveyor belt 17 miles long, to the railhead where it is deposited in three large silos. The train drives under the silos and the train cars are filled with coal, then the train returns to Page to unload.
Black Mesa Mine also provides coal slurry to a power generation plant in Laughlin Nevada. Coal slurry is ground up coal mixed with water, which is then pumped by pipeline, in this case over a distance of 273 miles!
Below are pictures of the silos. The openings where the train drives under the silo are hidden from view by an earth berm in the foreground. A section of the 17 mile long conveyor belt which passes over the highway is also shown and the third picture is of a couple of the locomotives. One of them is marked BM&LP which stands for Black Mesa and Lake Powell.
On Wednesday my folks joined us. They are driving to California to visit college friends and their trip time and route coincides with where we are for a couple of days. Here is a picture of them, on the right and Jane's folks, on the left, with the rock formation known as Mexican Hat directly behind them. The next picture is a close up of Mexican Hat.
We toured the Monument Valley area of southern Utan and northern Arizona. This area has large outcroppings of rock that look like something underneath just pushed them up out of the surrounding landscape. They have eroded over time which has created the sloping areas around the base. Most of these formations are what is referred to as Navajo sandstone.
The sky was heavily overcast much of the day so we didn't take near as many pictures or get near as many nice pictures as we would have if we'd had more direct sun on the rocks, but we have to work with what we get as far as weather is concerned.
