Wednesday-Part 2 Bryce Canyon

 We arrived at Bryce Canyon about 4 o'clock.   We had watched the clouds gather and were so worried that our best laid plans to arrive there at sunset would be ruined, but low and behold the sun made a beautiful appearance just for our benefit.  

The Nolls were visiting for the third time and the Paulinis for the first, but everyone had the same reaction: amazement at the beauty and grandeur of the place.     

As we made our way through the park, stopping at the various overlooks, the light and shadows changed with each different vantage point.   It was quite wonderful.   We had a hard time leaving.   But as the shadows really got long, we reluctantly headed out of the park.   We stopped and had a nice supper at the famous Ruby's Lodge and then drove on about 15 miles to our hotel in Panguitch. 

Our day ended with wine and dessert in our hotel rooms.   Peaceful end to a very nice day.   Back to St. George on Thursday via the road that travels through Zion National Park.

Hugs to Everyone,

Bob, Deb, Kenn and Karen

Wednesday-Part 1 of Kanab and Beyond

Wednesday morning dawned beautiful and mild.   We ventured out for our first overnight excursion.   The small town of Kanab, Utah is about 90 minutes away from St. George.   In order to get there, you need to drive into Arizona and then back up into Utah.   Along the strip of Arizona lies Pipe Spring National Monument.   We had never heard of it until some neighbors here in our condo complex told us about it.   We really had no idea what it was all about.   Wow, so interesting!   It is actually and area very important to three groups:  The Paiute Indians, the native people who lived in the area, the Mormon settlers, and the federal government.     To make a long story short:   The Paiute settled here because of the water source-Pipe Spring.   They lived happily in the fertile valley until the Mormons and the government began to invade the area.   The area which had at one time been covered with lush grass was overgrazed by the cattle and sheep of Mormons and others.   The Mormons actually built what they called Winsor Castle right over the spring!   These pictures show the pond created by the spring, and the trough which carried the spring water right through the house. 

Eventually the complex became a haven for the multiple wives of polygamist Mormon men who were trying to evade the federal edict which eventually banned the practice.   In the middle of all of this the Paiute just got lost and displaced.   Finally when polygamy became illegal, the complex was abandoned and in 1923 it became a national monument.  In an amazing turn of events, the Paiute people were actually given back a small reservation there which is their ancestral homeland.  Also, the control over the monument is shared by the National Park service, the Mormon people and the Paiute people.   Quite amazing in light of the centuries of struggle and conflict.   Our tour was actually given by a Paiute man.   Very enjoyable.

We continued on into Kanab and beyond to Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park.   Who knew there would be a place that looks like the Sahara desert !   The dunes were huge and far reaching.   We had a nice picnic lunch there and then began a drive north and a bit west to Bryce Canyon National Park.


The story of our day continues.....

A Little Bit of Texas in St. George......

On Monday of this week Bob's sister Karen and her husband Kenn from Texas arrived for a visit.  We had a nice dinner last night after they arrived and stayed up way too late talking.     Then this morning we headed out to enjoy some of St. George.   We started at Snow Canyon and took a nice long walk and then drove out to the scenic overlook.   You can see Karen and Kenn with Snow Canyon in the background.   

 

After lunch back at the condo, Bob and Kenn headed off for the golf course and Karen and Deb toured a bit of the historic area of the city.  

You can see that we were quite thirsty after our afternoon adventures and the wine and Old Fashions tasted pretty nice on our deck.

Tomorrow morning we are heading off to Kanab, Utah and some sightseeing in that area and then we will drive on to Bryce Canyon in the afternoon.   We will stay overnight near Bryce and then make our way home on Thursday.   Stay tuned,   the adventure continues.....

Amazing Artwork

We are continually amazed at the variety of historical and beautiful features found in this corner of our country.   Last year when we were here we visited a petroglyph site just on the edge of St. George.  This past week there was an article in the local paper about another site nearby.   Of course, it caught our eye and on a beautiful, warm, sunny Saturday afternoon we headed out again in search of this ancient Indian art form.   This day took us south of the city about 5 miles.   We were actually just over the Arizona state line.   After driving back into nowhere on a rutted gravel road, we came to the Little Black Mountain Petroglyph Site.

 The site is at the base of a mesa where many large boulders have fallen away and tumbled down to the dessert floor below.   Many of them are sandstone which became blackened over millions of years.   It must have struck the native people as the perfect canvas on which to express themselves.   After we parked the car and started walking, it was literally a few steps before we saw the first image.  We wandered among the huge rocks searching for images.   It was neat to imagine the ancient people choosing the perfect rock as their canvas and then scratching away the black surface to create the wonderful pictures which tell the story of their lives.

We were also amazed that it is obvious people who have visited the site have been respectful of the images and their value.   You are free to climb, explore, investigate, and touch without any restrictions.  Yet, we only saw one spot where a modern "wanna be" had etched a drawing and a couple rocks that some local rednecks had used for target shooting practice.   Yikes.


Special shout out to our son Scott.   He turned 39 on Friday.    Love and birthday wishes to you, Scott. 

Hugs to Everyone else out there.   Sending you good vibes from St. George.

Bob and Deb




  

Meandering Around Mesquite

So today found us heading south to Mesquite, Nevada.   It is only about 30 minutes from St. George.   We had been there for the balloon rally in January.   Our purpose today was to see the movie Philomena and Mesquite was the closest city to be showing it.  Off we went.

On the way to Mesquite, you pass through a very short stretch of Arizona.   It is quite a canyon carved out by our old friend, the Virgin River, which runs right through St. George as well.   We had seen signage for a recreation area the last time we drove through the canyon and decided to stop and explore there a bit today after the movie.

AS you can see, not only did we find the Virgin River, but there was actually water flowing in it! We took a short hike along the river in each direction.   Pretty peaceful and neat.

 It was an extra bonus that the movie was really great, so all in all the afternoon excursion which included a picnic lunch, movie, hiking, and covering the states of Utah, Arizona, and Nevada was enjoyable and only took us 5 hours!   

Tomorrow will be a day to hang around the condo for a good part of the day as the USA women's hockey game in the Olympics is showing live.   There are priorities after all!

Toodles and we are wishing our granddaughter Emily good luck in her basketball game tomorrow.   Only 2 games left.   They have had a very successful season, with only 1 loss so far.  

The Happy Wanderers

Another Visit To Snow Canyon

 On Tuesday, the hiking bug bit again.   After some serious discussion, we decided to head out to Snow Canyon once again.   There are a couple trails we had not hiked yet.  So the one we chose is called Three Ponds.   It was a 3.5 mile round trip hike, which is just fine with us, EXCEPT, we should have taken the park brochure at its word when in the description of the trail, it mentioned "deep sand".   Who knew that nearly the entire 3.5 miles would be deep sand!   It was very neat to be off the beaten path a bit.   We had actually been in the area last year, only it was on horseback when we had that adventure with Jeff and Ruth. 

 We were hiking in what the locals call a "wash".   It is basically a dry river bed.   Certainly looked to us like it had been a very long time since there was anything "washing" down this riverbed!  We gave it our best effort, but about 3 miles into the hike both our legs were starting to complain.   We headed back to the car, part of the way via a service road!   

We are looking forward to showing Karen and Kenn this pretty park when they arrive next week.  

Hugs to Everyone,

Deb and Bob

Follow the River

Our routine since the grandkids have gone home is to sleep a little later, have a relaxing morning, then some type of activity in the warmth of the afternoon.  Yesterday we decided to drive to a pecan farm, then hike at Red Cliffs National Recreation area.  Last year, on our last day in St. George, we had spent an afternoon there exploring an Indian ruins site.  This time we hiked two trails, the Silver Reef Trail which leads to some dinosaur tracks.  Our second trail, Red Reef follows along Quail Creek to a small waterfall and beyond the waterfall it leads into a narrow canyon.

Beginning of the Red Reef Trail

Can you see the dinosaur track?

Following the river above the waterfall

Exploring in Pioneer Park

 Saturday was the perfect afternoon for a hike.  The clouds were clearing and the temperature was in the low 60's, so we decided the see if the kids would enjoy a park that Deb and I had explored on our own.  Pioneer Park is about a five acre area that is virtually a red rock playground situated above the city of St. George, so that every rock ledge and hill you climb you have a great view of the city below.  You can see some of the small and larger caves that have formed over the years due to the erosion of the red sandstone.  What a fun place for families to just hike, climb and discover new hiding places and vantage points.  We continue to be impressed at the number of families that get out and enjoy this type of activity as a family.  Today, Sunday was our last day with the kids, as we will meet Scott and Sam tomorrow at Beaver, about halfway between their ranch and St. George.  Our time together has gone fast and the days have been full of many activities.  We enjoyed another sunny day of low 60's.  The kids spent time at the clubhouse in the morning and saw some people starting to go swimming so they got on their suits and spent an hour and a half before lunch swimming and then decided to go back for another swim again after lunch.  A good way to end their time here. 

Hope all is well for all of you.
  Good Bye for now.

Bob and Deb

Have You Ever Been Inside a Bubble?

 On Wednesday afternoon we had planned to go on a little field trip to Kanab but Grandpa was feeling under the weather.   So he napped and enjoyed some quiet time while Grandma and the kids headed to the new Children's Museum here in St. George.   It just opened in November and ended up being a very neat place.   We could  have put 10 pictures on of the neat things they could do, but settled on these few.   This science room was amazing.   The kids had the most fun with the bubble makers.  As you can see, they could stand on this little platform and then someone else drew up the bubble around them.   They did it over and over and over.   They milked a cow, piloted an airplane, played wheelchair basketball and many more fun things.       Grandpa was feeling so left out when he looked at our pictures, we decided we are going back tomorrow! 

Of course, we were so pooped when we finished that we just had to stop at the old fashioned ice cream store.   Roger and Marsha-do you remember this place?   The kids enjoyed looking at all the memorabilia just as much as we did last year.

Hope all is well with Everyone.

Bob and Deb

Our Olympic Unit

Part of their school work this week is centered on the Olympics.  The kids are learning about Russia and some of the history of the Olympics.  We are also going to have our own special events.  Today we made our own medals.  Our first event was one we called Rock Rolling.  They painted some rounded stones that we (Deb and I) found on a hike last week.  The challenge was to roll your rock the farthest down the rocky hillside.  Hunter won the gold, Katie won silver and Ben won bronze.  It was a good opening event to our Olympics Games.  Tomorrow we are planning to head to another state park called Coral Pink Sand Dunes where we will so some sliding down the hilly dunes.  We are also planning to go to a wildlife sanctuary nearby.  We will keep you posted on the results. 

So long for now.

Bob and Deb

Fun at Snow Canyon

As we were driving to Snow Canyon we asked Katie, Hunter and Ben if they remembered the park from last year.  They recognized Cowboy and Indian statues at the entrance to the park and also the area they climbed last year where Scott got stuck on a slippery rock ledge and called back down to us in a concerned tone, "a little help here".  The three pictures below were part of our fun afternoon at Snow Canyon.  The white rocks behind the kids is the end of the canyon and why the park is named Snow Canyon.  The kids ended the day at the sand dunes making sand castles.  The lower picture is Butterfly Trail.  It is part of a large area of red sandstone which is eroded  by the elements over thousand of years into gradient ridges, very striking and beautiful.  Some of the trails are paved for bikers and wheelchairs.  We brought along their scooters and they loved traveling up and down on the hilly sections and finishing at the sand dunes.

Spending Superbowl Sunday at the Park

We decided that we would try out one of the many parks in St. George.  Cottonwood Park is about a mile from our condos.  The kids had a great time, but by the end of the time (about an hour and a half) they had tired arms and legs and sore muscles today.  The picture at the left is the kids entrance to the park. 








The picture at the right shows Katie and Hunter suspended with rubber hoses similar to a teeter-todder but much more dynamic.  The picture below shows Katie and Hunter on a moving circle, similar to log rolling. 

 The picture below shows Ben on the rock wall.  The video clip at the bottom shows Katie on another great activity.  Hunter had fun on this one too.





 

Clubhouse Fun

On Saturday morning we received about .7" of rain.  That's almost a months worth for this area.  They are in need of rain.  Most of the state is in near drought conditions.  But later in the day the sun came out and we were off to the clubhouse.  As Ben says, "it's the best".   We learned how to play shuffleboard and then the kids tested the water and felt it was warm, so we went back to the condo and got our suits on and swam, even though the air temperature was only 45 degrees.  But, the hot tub was over 100, so we spent time going back and forth.  We met a couple from Wisconsin and we got to talking with them and discovered they  live in Sullivan, not far from Scott and Sam's former home in Oconomowoc.

They just retired and are spending the month here as well.  We also saw another car in the complex from Wisconsin.  We aren't the only ones who are seeking the warm weather.  So long for now.

Bob and Deb

Happy Chinese New Year

Today in school we learned about the tradition of the Chinese New Year.   2014 is the year of the horse.   We had a little chart to look and see what animal each of us was.   Ben was born in the year of the rat, Hunter in the year of the dog, Katie in the year of the sheep, and Bob and Deb are both in the year of the ox.  We ended the day with homemade egg rolls to celebrate the occasion.

It had been a rainy day in St. George, but as we were eating, we looked out the window and you can see what we saw.   We figured it was a sign of good luck!

 We ended Friday with a movie and popcorn night.   We were all excited because our chosen movie was Return of the Jedi.  Hunter has gotten everyone into Star Wars mode.   Their family had already watched the first two movies and so this was perfect timing.   We loved the movie-all except for that slobbery, old, Jabba the Hut!  Of course, the Ewoks were the favorites!

We plan to have a relaxing weekend.   We will just enjoy some quiet times, and see what the days bring.   We do plan to have our own Super Bowl party with pizza.

The Kids and the Old Folks