Zion, City of God

If I were God, I wouldn’t want a city made of gold and silver and fine jewels, but instead I’d want a city of stone draped with reds and pinks and vermilions and various shades of ivory set under deep blue skies and among the green cottonwoods winding along a laughing river. 

“To be in this country; to live in it much of your life; to understand its geology, its history, to see it in all its seasons, and still, ultimately, to know nothing that can summarize it. All you can do is have faith in the strength of the experience, paint, ‘not knowing,’ but with conviction in the significance of those feelings.”

—Artist V. Douglas Snow (who lived in Teasdale, Utah, near Capitol Reef National Park, and recently passed on)

Blue Moon in Snow Canyon

I usually wake up really early when camping, sometimes an hour or two before dawn, and this gives me plenty of time for my requisite coffee and some reading. But New Year’s Day I slept in a bit, having spent the previous evening enjoying the light display at the LDS Temple in St. George, Utah and ice skating at the rink downtown.

And I almost missed one of the most awesome and beautiful displays I’ve ever seen.

I was fiddling with my low-tech espresso maker (a pan on the stove), when I noticed an unusual red glow outside. I grabbed my camera just in time to watch the blue moon set over the rim of Snow Canyon. Pictures can’t do the scene justice, but merely give a hint of what I saw. It’s recorded in my memory, though, in full technicolor that can never fade...I hope not, anyway. What a way to start 2010!

A Doggie Dude Kind of Doggone Good Day

Well, as far as the dogs are concerned, the new year got off to a really good start. They’re hoping it’s a portent of how 2010 will shake out for them.

On New Year’s Day, after a leisurely breakfast of doggie biscuits and cream, which left us all with a sense of doggie well-being, we decided to head east into Zion National Park country, but via the back roads. Our first stop was at Sand Hollow, a huge sandy hollow (aptly named, I guess) that now has a lake in the center of it and is a Utah state park. 

Sand Hollow is near Hurricane, which is pronounced “Hurracun” by the locals, so say it that way if you want people to think you’re a local, even if you’re from London or New Jersey or Hurracun and can’t really speak a lick of decent English. It’s kind of like when the locals talk about the San Rafael Swell in Southeast Utah, they say San Ra-fel,” and if you call the little town of Ouray, Colorado, “Ooray” instead of “You-ray,” everyone will likewise know you’re from distant parts (even though Chief Ouray, for whom the town was named, pronounced it “Ooray”).

Anyway, we were warned against Sand Hollow, as it’s a recreational paradise for things that make lots of noise (ATVs and boats), and we like peace and quiet. But there really wasn’t much going on this time of year, and we found a nice quiet back road to hike down and were reluctant to leave. The dogs really enjoyed that little walk, and this added to their sense of doggie well-being.

Sand Hollow State Park near Hurricane, Utah

A hopefully extinct cinder cone stands high above stands of cholla near Sand Hollow. This area had volcanic activity as recently as 2,000 years ago.

Cholla, not so good on the sense of doggie well-being

We finally got back onto the main road into Zion country, and there we saw a most amazing thing—ostriches! An ostrich ranch, right here in the desert. So we had to stop and watch the big birds, which kind of resulted in a paradigm shift for Blueeze and Moki, who previously liked to chase birds. I believe they added a new resolution to the list after seeing these guys.

When Blueeze let out a bark, the big birds came stomping over, and this definitely did not add to her sense of doggie well-being, knowing that such things exist. (Kind of like seeing Bigfoot, I would think.) 

Blueeze watches an amazingly big bird from the safety of the car.

When Moki first spotted the ostriches, her eyes got really big...

...then she closed them. I think she would’ve stuck her head in the sand if we’d been outside.

This roadrunner at the picnic area in Snow Canyon is more their speed, or so they think, anyway (remember Wile E. Coyote?).

Onward into the little village of Rockville, where a really cool business on the outskirts of town really caught everyone’s eye—a doggie dude ranch aptly called “Doggie Dude Ranch.” The sign into the main gate read, “Welcome Doggie Dudes.” This is a potential stay-over place for our next visit. Blueeze has always been a Tom Mix fan, and Moki likes Dale Evans and Roy Rogers (“Happy trails to you...”), so maybe we can get some real Western canine dude culture next time we’re in the area. This definitely added to their sense of doggie well-being, especially with their cattle dog heritage. (I didn’t mention to them that maybe it was another ostrich ranch...)

There was much more to the trip, but as far as the dogs go, the highlight was getting leftovers from the Spotted Dog Cafe. They really thought this was the cat’s meow, being from Spotted Dog Ranch and all. Maybe next time they can actually go inside to eat, which would greatly increase their sense of...well, their sense that they’re actually humans in little fur coats and not dogs at all.

Cognitive Dissonance and Dino Tracks

This dino track even shows the claws.

I have a friend who’s a part-time Baptist minister. I’m not sure if he simply preaches part-time or if he preaches only to part-time Baptists, but in any case, one day we were talking about what he calls “Antedeluvian Times.” I told him that I didn’t much care for floods and was anti-deluvian myself, but he just ignored me, informing me that he was really having a hard time coming to grips with the existence of dinosaurs and geologic time in light of Noah’s Flood and how some interpret the time scale of the Bible. I told him that since I tend to live for the day, theories about time didn’t really concern me all that much.

But I’m sure it’s a common quandary for those who believe the earth was created a short time ago, and thereby creates cognitive dissonance for many.

Anyway, I’ll call this fellow Tom for purposes of privacy. Well, Tom tells me he can prove that dinosaurs and humans coexisted, he has real physical geologic evidence that’s irrefutable and would I care to see it? Of course, I answer, something like that could be really big, and I really do try to be open minded, there are still lots of unsolved mysteries. So off Tom and I go down the river road out of Moab to Hittle Bottom, a popular put-in for river rats rafting the Colorado.

Tom’s driving his old red Bronco with freshly painted white fenders, and he pulls over into the Hittle Bottom parking lot, which is ringed by large red rocks brought in for that purpose from what looks to be across the road. We get out and walk over to one particular such imported rock and he points out a very clear dinosaur track on it. I’m surprised and a bit alarmed that nobody noticed this during the construction, but there it sits, right on one of the parking lot rocks. Looks to be a therapod track. (That’s what you say when you’re not sure about something dino-related, as therapods were the most common of all dinosaurs and odds are you’ll be right.)

Now here’s where things get interesting. Right next to the dinosaur track, only a few inches from it in the same rock, is a deep impression that actually looks like it was made by a cowboy boot. Tom is watching my face and has a look on his of someone holding all the aces in a poker game.

“Proof, right there,” he smiles. “Irrefutable proof that humans and dinosaurs coexisted.”

Somehow I’m having trouble picturing Fred Flintstone in cowboy boots, but I just nod my head, and we soon head back home. I’m not sure what to say to Tom, I can’t reconcile these religious and geologic time differences any more than when I cross over one time zone into another and find I’ve gained or lost an hour and didn’t even notice. It just doesn’t really make much difference to my own personal philosophies, I guess. Like I said, there are still lots of mysteries, and I kind of like it like that, makes life more interesting.

This incident came to mind when I visited the recently discovered and very impressive dinosaur track site near St. George, which is not too far from the impressive St. George Mormon Temple. 

Of course, to me, the tracks are much more interesting than the temple, but that’s just my own perspective, as the works of man often tend to make me feel a bit out of sorts. 

But not to worry, it’s nothing that a little geologic time won’t fix.

(Besides, they wouldn’t let me into the temple, but the dino site welcomed me with open arms—as long as I paid the six bucks, anyway).

The massive Mormon Temple in St. George on a rare snowy day (it’s because I was there)

A painting of the Temple’s early days before St. George (named after one of the patriarchs of the area) became a city

The St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site

Mud casts in a Jurassic sea

Geology/paleontology types, a breed unto themselves. Geologists call themselves the only alcohol-based life form on earth, but I think they’re actually chili based. This pack is using a car hood to drag a dino fossil out of the desert to be analyzed and preserved. (They look like they’re having too much fun to ever worry about time.)

If dinos had dentists, I bet they really cleaned up (unless they got acciDENTally eaten).

May Your New Year Have Genius, Power, and Magic

It’s been about two and a half years since we’ve had a blue moon (two full moons in the same month), and this one happens to fall on the last day of the year, a special way to usher out the old.

Moonrise without a tripod

This is what happens when you try to take a photo of the moon while tripping over rocks in the dark.

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: 

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. 

—W.H. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition

May your new year have genius, power, and magic.

Blue Moon over Snow Canyon, Utah

15,000 Miles in the Saddle

If you’ve read any history of the settlement of southern Utah, you’ve no doubt seen the name Jacob Hamblin, the legendary Mormon scout who knew the rugged sourthern parts of Utah like the back of his hand. Hamblin was instrumental in assisting Brigham Young in locating new settlements, and he also helped John Wesley Powell in his scientific explorations based in Kanab. The Mormons are proud of him, and he was inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame as having set more miles in a saddle than anyone else, some approximate 15,000. His rear end must’ve been made of stern stuff, I’ve spent a bit of time in a saddle myself and it’s not easy going.

So, while wandering around pretty much lost in the environs of St. George, Utah, I stumbled on Jacob Hamblin’s house in the little town of Santa Clara and had to take a look.

The house can be toured only in a group with a guide, and the guides are Mormons on missions (there’s a rock band name for you)—id est, you get to be a captive audience. These Mormon folks are usually older retirees who agree to go wherever the church sends them and do whatever the church says to do, all on their own nickel. A pretty good deal all around, as they typically enjoy what they’re sent to do and feel useful and the church gets free labor. (For some reason that reminds me of another time I was lost, but this time on the Internet, and found some Youtubes of young Mormon missionaries doing rap songs about their religion, which was quite entertaining. Google “Youtube Mormon rap”)

Before I get lost in social commentary on the LDS Church, let’s return to the Hamblin House, a beautiful rock structure built in the 1800s. The tour guide was quite congenial, he didn’t even blink when I filled out the requisite form (so they can send me Mormon literature) with the name Bonnie Abzug. But then it’s pretty unlikely he’s read Ed Abbey’s “The Monkey Wrench Gang.”

The tour was interesting, although the guide had never heard of Mormon hobbles, even though there was a nice set displayed next to Hamblin’s saddle. They’re made of metal, instead of the typical leather, in order to keep wet sand from sticking to them. I explained how they worked (they’re like a puzzle, you have to know how to undo them, and they were very effective at preventing horse thievery, except by other Mormons, of course). He seemed surprised at the ingenuity of his own religious kin. I could’ve told him other stories of such ingenuity but managed to remain silent.

The house has very high ceilings, making me wonder how they could possibly keep it warm, but then I remembered we were in what’s called Utah’s Dixie, a place so mild that the Mormons once grew cotton here. (This fit in well with Brigham Young’s scheme to raise silkworms, which accounts for the many mulberry trees planted in Utah towns.)

All in all, the house was pretty interesting, and I didn’t even mind the part where we got a bit sermonized, as it was all meant in good faith. After all, somebody has to pay for all those big temples, and if you’re busy trying to pay for your own mission, why not bring a few more into the fold when you get the chance to help out? It sure can’t hurt to try, anyway. 

The Road Goes Ever On and On...and Always Ends in the Redrock

Endless desert mountains near Needles, California

French author Andre Gide wrote, “Only those who consent to lose sight of the shore for a very long time will discover new lands.” Often such shores are not in the physical realm, but belong instead to inner journeys. 

Sometimes moving forward through fear can be the greatest journey one can take. My initial fears of being able to hook up and pull a trailer seem to be abating, so I must be nearing some kind of shore.

After a night in Needles, California, I’m soon on the Mohave Indian Reservation, and then even further north in Bullhead City, which earns the title of “longest strip city I’ve seen in a long time.” 

One of the more marvelous examples of the follies of mankind, a huge steamboat casino in Bullhead City.

Yes, I’ve turned around and am headed back to Utah, abandoning plans to go to Big Bend National Park in Texas, I’m already too road weary and it’s too far. Sometimes wisdom is knowing when to turn around. My spirit longs for wildlands, not endless freeways.

A speed bump at the Las Vegas Speedway

I manage to survive Las Vegas (Lost Wages) and decide to visit the Valley of Fire north of the city. I stop where the road drops down into the valley and walk the dogs, losing all desire to go further because of the non-stop holiday traffic. I’ll save it for a other day.  

Looking down into the Valley of Fire

We continue on to St. George, passing again through the stunning Virgin River Canyon.

A true point and shoot photo of dropping into the Virgin River Canyon. I didn’t even look through the viewfinder, as you can tell. I can’t text and drive at the same time, either.

Soon we’re in beautiful Snow Canyon State Park, a stunning mixture of redrock sprinkled with black volcanic rock. 

We’ll stay here awhile, I’ve always found redrock an effective cure for whatever ails me. I somehow seem to mysteriously gravitate towards it, no matter where I am. 

It immediately starts raining, but that’s OK, cause it’s snowing everywhere else. It’s important to keep things in perspective, especially when you’ve finally found safe harbor.

We still remember, we who dwell 

In this fair land beneath the trees 

The starlight on the distant seas.
—J.R.R.Tolkien