Sunday, July 11, 2010

07-11-2010 Sunday - Beautiful Mountains & Red Sand Dunes





Frank: Hello from Nephi, Utah. OK. Can you say, “Spectacularly Beautiful”? Well, if you can you’ve just described Utah. It is magnificent, and even (dare I say it) prettier than Arizona. The mountains are tall and craggy like Arizona but the “desert” is green and covered in lush desert plants, flowers, and grass. We both think this would be a wonderful state to live in right up to the point when we think about the winter weather. I mean, the roofs of all the houses are steeply pitched so the snow will slide off. That means it gets a whole bunch of cold up here, and I don’t do cold well. It’s wonderful how Cheryl “rounds me out.” This morning she saw a sign for the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park and said she’d really like to see it. For me pink sand dunes are about as exciting as a root canal, but surprisingly I had a good time. It was fun to take a break and just be a looky-lou-tourist for a while. Utah is a red, white, and blue state that wears its patriotism proudly. Just try to drive through these small towns like Kanab, Panguitch, Circleville, and Maryvale without counting 20 or 30 flags flying proudly from homes, businesses and the tops of bluffs so high you wonder how they got up there to build the flagpole. This is the America Washington, DC needs to come visit.

Cheryl: I have a dear friend, who grew up in Utah. Often she talks of Kanab, St. George, and Panguitch and of the delicate Coral sand dunes in the state park near there. Now I understand that longing in her voice and the faraway look in her eyes when she speaks of those places. We didn’t go through St. George this time although we’ve been there in the past. Driving through the nostalgic towns of Kanab and Panguitch we were struck by the neat and clean appearance of the houses, churches and yards, no doubt a result of the influence of the Mormon Churches which seem to fill a grassy corner lot in each little neighborhood. The streets are wide and clean and the downtown areas remind me of my own hometown during the 50s and 60s. Tiny movie theaters with marquees out front squat right in the middle of a downtown block of store fronts. Perfectly square red brick homes with hip roofs and neatly painted frame ones with pitched roofs mingled with lovely old Victorians with turrets. Wide front porches grace many of the homes and have spindles around their gingerbread roof lines. All this picturesque scenery sits in the middle of a lush agricultural valley surrounded by red sandstone cliffs.

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