As we travelled down the road, we drove through the burn area that occurred from the fire two years ago, in 2002. There is green grass growing here now.

Chapin Mesa can be divided into three major loops.

It was now about 1:00 pm and we were ready for some lunch. Each of the loops has picnic areas. We chose to eat at the picnic area in Loop 2 since this is near Cliff Palace, and we had just one hour to get to the tour starting point.

We reached the turnoff in Loop 1, and turned left to go down towards Loop 2 and Loop 3. A short ways further, we again made a left turn that took us into Loop 2.

We found that the picnic area was also located at the Cliff Palace parking area.

We chose a parking space and pulled in. We hauled out some drinks, chips and sandwich supplies and walked up a short trail to some picnic tables. One unused table was in the shade, so that's where we sat. We made two sandwiches each and as we ate, we were entertained by blue jays (also known as camp robbers) and some ravens and a few other types of birds. When we finished eating, we hauled stuff back to the vehicle, pulled out camera and camcorder, then walked across the parking lot and down to the Cliff Palace overlook. We had about 10 minutes to spare before the start of the tour.

From the overlook, we could see across the canyon, towards the Loop 3 area.