There's Gold in Them Thar Frills!

Now I'm not one to poke a little fun at someone's religion (like hell I'm not) but if you're Mormon or plan on converting to Mormonism anytime soon, you might want to move onto the Drudge Report. Of course, that right-wing nimrod may be Mormon.

As you move on up into Utah you discover a paucity of bars, taverns, nightclubs, casinos, liquor stores and what you get instead are LDS churches and Mormon history. Take the small town of Bluff, Utah, for example. Mormon pioneers settled here in the late 1800s. They established this fort to fend off  and convert maurading Ein-jines. Today, the original settlement, Bluff Fort, is a living history village...with Mormon meeting house...no dogs allowed but Daisy can't read nor is she a dog.Historians have attended to the most minute historical detail, recreating even America's first crude air-conditioner.In all his travels for work over the years, Paul is easily bored by these phony recreations. He just sat under a shade tree and clipped his fingernails. Thank God it wasn't his toenails. Mormons love their patriarchs and prophets and erect bronze likenesses of them when and where they can. These pioneer Mormon families believed that more was better. More kids and in many cases, more wives. Plural marriage, aka "polygamy", was widely practiced back then. Take this woman, for example. "Aunt Jody", the village midwife. She felt blessed that she was able to travel around and do good works because her husband's second wife performed her chores back home, in the field, in the kitchen, and in the sack. We move on up the road to the small city of Blanding for a July 4 celebration.Certainly not Daisy's favorite day. She doesn't like loud noises or ridiculous get-ups. But what's the sense of having a dog like Daisy if you can't embarrass yourself and her on occasions like this. And speaking of "this" occasion, July 4th in Mormon town fell on a Sunday, a Mormon day of rest, prayer, and fellowship. So what do they do??? They celebrate July 3rd, Saturday. We damn near missed the whole thing. Them's fireworks as seen from our RV park about a half-mile away. Daisy is still traumatized. But Paul explained the whole Francis Scott Key connection..."the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air"...the Fort McHenry thing. She seems to be coming out of it. Of course, a piece of ham helped her swallow the history lesson. Oops, this shot made it in twice.Blanding really is a nice little spot with nice restaurants, a good grocery store, nice people. But on Sunday, as with most Mormon enclaves, this was a ghost town. Nothing's open and forget trying to score some booze. That's damn near impossible Monday through Saturday. But on Saturday, just before we damn near missed the fireworks, we went to Blanding's visitor center to find out what there is to do around here since you can't find a damn drink. We were welcomed with open arms and some free stuff. Boy, do we love that. And what'd we get: a small tube of Arm & Hammer whitening tooth paste and an Odwalla banana nut bar. Now we really need a drink.  This is what there is to do in Blanding on Sundays. Of course, if you're not Mormon, you're not welcome inside. The town is divided into "wards" and each ward attends a three-hour prayer and educational service every Sunday in the LDS church. While I suspect that the services lack the splendor of Sunday Mass in a Catholic cathedral or the raucousness of a Southern Baptist revival, they seem to keep this town, this state and its people on a pretty even keel. We like these folks. They's good people. (Most of them are, anyway. There's an interesting public service announcement airing on Utah television. It warns people (aimed especially at LDS members) to beware of scam artists who..."go to church with you"...I know two Mormons who have been caught up in investment schemes "sold" to them by church members.)Since there was nothing else to do on Sunday, we went, where else? To the local bury patch. A good place for Daisy to run. Hell, the residents don't care and you never know what you'll discover carved in stone. I guess this was the end of the road for more than a few RVers. This guy's RV died here, followed by Mr. Black himself. How the hell did a Catholic and my big Catholic butt make it into this Mormon bury patch?Many headstones include an etching of a Mormon Temple. You've really scored if you said your vows at the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. That would be like getting married at the Vatican. "Sealed" means that your marriage will survive in heaven for all eternity.Then there's this guy with no RV or Mormon temple etchings. Rather the names of his six, yes, six wives.  Sealed and resealed six times over. When polygamy (euphemistically called "plural marriage") was outlawed in Utah, renegade polygamists established colonies south-of-the-border where they could practice their perversion. Here's a guy born in one of those colonies in Mexico. Ay, Chihuahua! Those colonies still exist, by the way. To say nothing of Hildale and Colorado City on the Utah/Arizona border.Anyway, the guy who had six wives also had 41 children by them. Do the math: that's almost seven kids per wife. Eek.His name was William Morley Black. Born in 1826 and died in 1915.Who believed, as it says on the monument, "I found the gold I was looking for." Yep. There's gold in them their frills.  Oh yeah...Who among you wouldn't want to wake up next to old Wild Bill? Paul is already bored with the blog so while I'm doing this he's sitting across from me reading about Al Gore's sex attack in the "National Enquirer". Daisy is sound asleep. Life on the road. Life is good.  Moving onto Moab.  SEE YA!

Swingers in Utah!

Day 5 and we entered what many consider to be the highlight of a southwest road trip: northern Arizona's Monument Valley. Hollywood director John Ford put it on the map in the late 1940s with his iconic shots of land and sky and the U.S. Cavalry marching along led by John Wayne. The terrain really is stunning. Each mountain monument has a name and takes on a character of its own. Some call this one "the High Sign", the one-fingered salute.You  have to pull over and get out of the vehicle to spend some time taking it all in. Don't just zip through it. That's no way to experience Monument Valley. Off in the distance here behind the 2010 Lance 2285 is a monsoon storm headed our way. We paused a spell by an abandoned Navajo roundhouse or "hogan" and discovered it was once Chief Tecumsah's summer home. He would have Cochise, Geronimo, and Sitting Bull over for fire water and after a few pops they were the ones giving the rocks their names. Them Ein-gines. They's a hoot. We do the same thing in Sedona: sit around, drink wine and name rocks. This is the heart of the Navajo reservation near the Four Corners, the largest privately-held piece of land in the nation. And how large, you ask? Seventeen million acres. That's 26,000 square miles. The same size as the state of West Virginia. It's all within the states of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado. On a map you can see where all four states come cleanly together, hence the name "Four Corners". The Navajo nation is so vast it makes the huge King Ranch in Texas look like a stamp-sized lot in a subdivision.

With one or two stops it takes about an hour to drive through Monument Valley and then you reach the small settlement of Mexican Hat, Utah. Yep. Home of the "Swingin' Steak". Never heard of such a steak? Or that it actually had a home? In a place you've never heard of? Well, we hadn't either. Wanted to show you a picture of it here but again, the computer took over and inserted a shot of Paul (below) standing by the San Juan River instead. That's Daisy in the distance ready to jump in. The San Juan runs through Mexican Hat and is popular with river rafters. Downstream the San Juan flows into the Colorado. While these waters look calm, danger lurks below. The water is often so full of silt that even strong swimmers can sink under the weight of their mud-soaked clothing. Found this road kill on the banks of the San Juan. Actually, it's Daisy after a swim in the river. We thought that would be a way to give her a quick bath. It lasted only briefly until she swam back to shore and rolled in the mud and sand. Nothing like a muddy, sand-laden mutt in an RV. Stayed in Mexican Hat in a small, friendly RV park that would only allow Marines or ex-Marines to park there. Lance Corporal Francis Paul Ryan was afforded a hero's welcome but I was forced to move on down the road even though my Dad was a Marine. Geronimo in one of his inebriated stupors saw this balancing rock and dubbed it "Mexican Hat". I think it really does look like a sombrero. Paul, in one of his drunken stupors, thought it looked more like Sarah Palin's petrified brain.  San Juan River again. But where's Daisy?Oh, she's on shore, taking a second roll.And lest we forget because the computer didn't. Here is the swinging steak. A big, thick juicy porterhouse that swings on a grill above the fire. And only $38 but that includes all the fat you can eat. A delicious damn thing but a tad pricey. This ain't New York City and this ain't Ruths Chris. Go figure. We're going on deeper into Utah to follow the trail of the Mormon pioneers/polygamists and enjoy Fourth of July fireworks on July 3rd because July 4th, 2010 fell on a Sunday, a Mormon day of prayer and rest and absolutely no festivities. Go figure.

Grand, Awesome, and Dangerous

Yee-hah. We have resurrected our Grand Canyon pictures. Ain't ya thrilled? Or not. And this is our campsite. And here it truly is camping because we couldn't book a full hook-up space so we resorted to "dry camping". No electric, sewer, or water. Just what the twelve-volt battery in the trailer can provide but for two or three days it's perfectly fine. For Daisy, sitting here with her Amish fedora, she has completely eschewed all modern conveniences, like the Amish themselves. So here she is right at home. Everything but the horse and buggy. Say what??? ? In Grand Canyon National Park visitors get just as excited about seeing animal poop as they do seeing the animals themselves.

This is elk poop. Not edible, by the way. No one told Daisy.And here's Daisy's new BFF. The damnedest canine we've seen in some time. A lady was walking it on the canyon rim. It's a wolf hybrid. A cross between a wolf and a collie. The owner said it has none of the wolf aggression. In fact, it's afraid of its own shadow. Actually, a lovely, sweet creature but weird as hell. We stopped at a snack bar along the canyon rim for a Coke and a soft pretzel. Put the pretzel down for second and a squirrel sneaked out of a bush and snagged it. The pretzel was bigger than the squirrel but what a payday for that little critter. The rangers ask you not to feed the wildlife. What the hell. The wildlife helps itself.Paul wearing Daisy's Amish hat and doing what all men are wont to do: pee off a deck or into the canyon. Why do men do it? Paul says "why do men build decks? So they can pee off 'em". What the hell, they're born with a "pull toy" and never quite let go of it.  By the way, men taking the opportunity to relieve themselves into the canyon is one of the top reasons they fall to their death.  Needless to say, you're warned every so often but idiots (dare we say Paul) still venture to within steps of a fatal plunge. Which bring us to one of the most popular "reads" at the Grand Canyon. Not about the flora or fauna but about the falls into it. It's a 370-page account of hundreds of fatal falls and other types of accidents. Everything from stupid daredevil drunks, mostly young men losing their footing, to a mid-air collision in 1956 with TWA and  United planes veering off course and colliding at about twenty thousand feet above the canyon, killing all on board. Half a century later much of the wreckage and passenger debris are still in the canyon in remote and unreachable places. Yuck. We happened to be there on June 30th, the 54th anniversary.As a footnote, we worked with a videotape editor whose mother suffered a fatal fall in the early 1990s. At the time it was considered an accident but was later determined to be MURDER. Her new husband turned out be a serial killer. This was his third wife. He felt this little "un-love tap" over the edge was easier than a drawn-out divorce. It was sure as hell quicker. Paul taking a self-photo with his outstretched 18-foot-long arms. This is Daisy donning her Outward Hound parachute. We taught her how to pull the ripcord should she ever slip over the edge. Actually, it's a little life jacket for our next adventure at Lake Powell. But not nearly as interesting. And after strapping her into it, Daisy wouldn't budge. She refused to move even one leg. I don't think she could since she's become so fat. But what the heck. The dog can still swim better than any of us.Two days at the Grand Canyon and we headed north 140 miles to the city of Page at the far west end of massive Lake Powell. A 400-mile long lake with more than a thousand miles of shoreline formed by damming the Colorado River and burying the beautiful Glen Canyon. All of this to control the river's flow so that Los Angeles and Las Vegas could have water and electricity. Go figure. The big adventure here is houseboating. We've done that in previous trips and they only run about $6000 a night. But the Euros/foreigners suck 'em up like bangers, Vegemite and the never-ending World Cup.  For $120, something we bought into, this high-speed boat ride about fifty miles up the lake to the world's largest natural stone arch.But first, me on the boat. We're zipping along at 273 miles per hour.Our skipper, Captain Gustav Farkle, a 400-pounder, zigzags his way up-lake missing the rocky outcroppings by inches. People are screaming out of fright and delight and the Captain just keeps on popping cool ones, tossing the empties overboard.  Not really. Just making all this up as we try to fill time before we can show you the world's largest natural arch. The computer won't let us erase pictures.We cut our speed from a top of 463 miles per hour down to a drift to catch up with this supply boat. The captain took on more beer and tapioca pudding. And the supply boat ventured on to stock the larders of people living along the lake. Mostly "hostiles" Ein-jines. That's "Indians" or "First Nationers" for the politically correct. Oh, a barge delivering gas and ice. Where the hell is the arch? Finally, we're coming in for a landing, sans Captain Gustav who passed out at the helm. We'll be doing some on-shore exploring. And how great whites ever got into Lake Powell God only knows. But they have multiplied and become quite a threat, especially to water skiers.We're getting closer. We're almost there.I can hear the oohs and ahhs. Yes, this is Rainbow Bridge, the world's largest natural arch. This is a picture of our friend "Sam"  -- a woman -- who joined us for the very beginning of our trip. She's game to do anything and is a very good cook, allowing us to fully enjoy wine time while she works out in the kitchen. Somehow my out-stretched arm shot doesn't work as well as Paul's.Some new friends we met, a mother and daughter from Indiana, who volunteer at an animal rescue center called "Best Friends" in nearby Kanab, Utah. Something you lazy good-for-nothings might want to consider doing. Those, by the way, were Paul's words. And especially for you misguided conservatives listening to right-wing radio and watching Fox News, come out to volunteer and help the poor homeless animals in this world. Liberals, on the other hand, are born with a soft spot in their hearts and saving helpless creatures is second nature to them. Paul rails on.  But we digress...This is where we stayed at Lake Powell. A very nice RV park where most sites have water views. Of course the high during the day was 105 degrees so you're likely to be viewing the scenery from inside the rig with your air-conditioning blasting. Ah...nature.While Sam and I enjoyed the boat ride, Paul and Daisy enjoyed their favorite RV pastime. They're sound asleep in the cool rig. But then, who the hell took the picture? Apparently it was the  31-year-old Swedish nurse/"massage therapist" camped in the rig next to us. But she had cleared out by the time Sam and I returned.  Paul said his muscle/muscles haven't known such joy in some time. Do you suppose???? Nah...

Paul took off with the Swedish nurse/"massage therapist" while Daisy and I are headed to John Ford/John Wayne country in stunning Monument Valley. Thank God I now have the rig all to myself.

Off and Rolling...

 Ain't it grand? Willie Nelson may sing about "Beautiful, beautiful Texas. The most beautiful place I know." But just 100 miles north of where we live is the Grand Canyon. To our mind's eye, the most beautiful place on earth. And our first stop our first day on this planned two-month adventure. Daisy agrees. Perched right on the canyon rim is the century-old El Tovar Hotel. We stayed there once back when life was paid for during our working/travel days. Rooms here start at $13,000 a night. But the Euros suck 'em up like Wheatabix and warm beer.  This time no El Tovar but a dusty national park campground nearby. Nine bucks a night.   It was only a short walk to the rim. And yes, here's Ma and Pa Kettle overlooking the canyon. Actually the canyon's behind us. We're looking at the damn camera. Forget the pictures. The view is out there.

And what's the number one question visitors ask park rangers? Not how old is the canyon nor how was it formed but do people fall in? Oh, you bet they do. Every way imaginable. More about that in a future blog.

 We've abbreviated this entry. Had many more pictures but the computer or its operator erased all but these few shots above. We'll try to correct the problem in our next missive. You can't do this during "wine time".  Speaking of which...