St. George, Utah

Wow, I'm shocked and embarrassed at how long it's been since my last post! I won't even try to "catch up".....

We just returned from a trip to southern Utah, via Vegas. Why southern Utah? Well, after more than 40 years, Jaime's parents sold their house in Pasadena. They moved to southern Utah (St. George area) where Jaime's younger brother (Steve) and his family have lived for a few years now. So, reason #1.

Also, Steve's son (James) recently turned 12, and on Sunday the 31st he was ordained as a Deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood. A very special time for a young man and his family. So, reason #2.

Oh, and lest I forget, Jaime's dad turned 80 at the end of March. So these were all great reasons for the family to get together, which unfortunately doesn't happen often enough.

So, we headed to Vegas, rented a car & stayed overnight. Note to self --- don't EVER drive the strip again at night......... ever.....

Oh my gosh......what a great car. We had such a blast driving this thing around town. And especially all the U turns when we missed our turns!! :-) We're at a point in our lives where we can throw caution to the wind -- and throw practicality out the window!!!! It's so exciting. Only one problem.....AFTER we rented it we realized we were bringing Elizabeth (Jaime's sister) with us for the 2 hour drive back to Vegas cuz we were flying out at the same time. Uh oh...... Fortunately, we all had carry ons.

We had a (relatively) short 2 hour drive from Vegas, through Arizona (yep, through Arizona) and then up southern Utah to St. George. It was beautiful.........

 We were fascinated by all the color in the rocks / mountains.

 And this is as we drove into the small town of Ivins, where Jaime's parents live.







We arrived early Saturday afternoon, and spent the next 5 days with family, visiting a few church historical sites, and enjoying other local fun.

Of course, we had to visit the local temple.......

We noticed that the landscape around St. George is noticeably RED. Not only are there mountains of red rock, but there's red sand everywhere too. So, we discovered that the temple is actually built of RED ROCK!!! Yes, it is. They paint the temple every 10-12 years, and they power wash it on average of once a year. Beautiful.....

The temple took more than 10 years to build.

And this is the view from the back porch of Steve and Samira's house.

 May be kinda hard to see, but that white building in the distance is the St. George temple. What a view.....













And then there is the tabernacle........ (which was built in about 5 years)

I didn't take any of the outside and I only took these 2 of the inside, because they are what struck me the most. First, the most prevalent wood in the area is pine, but the saints (and builders of the tabernacle) really liked the dark woods like mahogany and cherry wood. So the banisters and such are actually pine that's stained and painted to look like the hard, dark woods. Such workmanship..... I was also mesmerized by the chandeliers -- 3 that run down the center. First, they were originally cast iron and weighed about 1200 pounds.

And back in the day, they were oil lamps -- not light bulbs!!! So they had to be lowered (with a hand crank) every time they had an evening meeting so they could light the oil lamps. And then.... you guessed it.... they had to be lowered (and raised again) at the end of the meeting to extinguish the lamps. Wow...
They are now cast aluminum and weigh a mere 400 lbs. They lower them about once a year to clean / dust them.

Ok, for this pic, I have to give a (hopefully) brief history of St. George. Under the direction of Brigham Young, saints were sent from Salt Lake to "colonize" various parts of Utah, as the saints gathering in Salt Lake had become quite numerous.

Several years later, when Lorenzo Snow was president of the church, the church was deeply in debt. He prayed to know how to solve this problem. His prayer was answered when he was prompted to visit the St. George area (he just didn't realize at the time that it was the answer that he had been seeking). At the time of his visit, southern Utah was suffering from a drought, and were in danger of not being able to grow crops (including livestock) to survive on. It was from this pulpit that he delivered his famous sermon (and revelation) on tithing. He promised the saints that if they would pay a full and honest tithe (10%), they would be relieved of the drought and have a full harvest that year. And his promise was fulfilled.

So this is a view of that very pulpit.

And finally, we made a visit to Brigham Young's winter home......

He liked the area so much that he purchased a home in St. George, and he spent several winters there.

As many of you may know, Brigham Young had several wives. But, according to our tour guide, only one had residence in the winter home --- his last one, that was also the youngest, and was a nurse. 

smart man.....

Apparently only the back of the house existed when he purchased it (right side), and he added the front (on the left near the fence), including the upper story.










This is the original porch....

Look at the detail....

Front door












Jaime took this because he realized that his dad has the same brand piano....

 This is a tree in the back yard, that is more than 100 years old. At some point, and for some unknown reason, it began splitting and the trunk kept growing farther and farther apart.

 "Tree surgery" was performed on it by anchoring the cable between the trunks to keep them from growing farther apart.

This is a portrait of Brigham Young that hangs in the parlor.

 This beautiful mantle, is NOT marble..... It's wood....

 And this as well is made of wood and painted to look like marble. What craftsmanship....

 yeah, don't know that I could do it......

This is the sewing machine and spinning wheel that was in the bedroom of the hired help.

Her bedroom was at the top of the stairs, right above the kitchen, presumably because she was the first one up, and the last one to bed. 

 This is part of his wife's bedroom, with the servant's room through that doorway.

 From the size of this bed, it was obvious they had separate rooms back then.

 This is part of Brigham Young's bedroom. He had separate tables for eating and for business.

 And this is Brigham Young's bed

 This was the dresser he traveled with. Notice the numbered drawers....

 And this is the schoolhouse next to the main house.

 Apparently they had a small vineyard, and made their own wine.











And while we were in southern Utah, we had to check out any potential duning areas.... for......research purposes! About 30 minutes from St. George is a rather large and rather awesome state park - Sand Hollow. It has a reservoir that is used for boating & scuba diving. It also has ATV trails across different types of terrain. In fact, even though there seems to be a fair amount of sand, they don't use paddles!!! That's right, Doug & Tina!!!! They keep the nobbies on because you're on and off the sand, rocks, tumbleweed, etc.

And this is some of the "duning" areas..........

And apparently (if you look at Google Earth) there's much more over the top of that ridge.....

Oh, and did I mention that there are several camp grounds?

Oh yeah.......... definitely looks like a great place to camp!!!







So, with Jaime's parents living in the area, we hope to one day load up the RV and the RZR and see what it's like to camp some place warm for a change. :-)

So this is the Hall's new house in Ivins. (They even had it built with an RV pad.....) Though St. George is a bustling metropolis (said no one EVER), Ivins is a quaint little town of about 7,000. And I think they're all retired.....

 The really neat thing is that just a mere 10 minutes from Ivins is this..........


Welcome to Snow Canyon.


Beautiful

Okay, so I'm mostly done with the travel log, and what follows is some random pics we took of random things we did (and enjoyed) while we were there.

Okay, I'm normally not one of THOSE people that take a bunch of pics of their hotel room, bathroom, mini-fridge, etc. but I had to take this one --- it was so unusual (to me). I can honestly say this is the first bathtub I have ever had to step down to get into. (Am I the only one ???) I will tell you that if you have a poor sense of balance, it can make toweling off a bit of an.....adventure.

Okay, yes, we're some of those weird people that take pics of their meals.........and text it......to other weird people that take pics of their meals......

Anyway, this was breakfast one morning at a place called Kneaders. They serve all-you-can-eat french toast. And for me, the "slice" on the right was all I could eat. It was amazing.....

This was from a place called Iceberg Drive In. Jaime was insistent that we stop there when he heard they serve Licorice flavored thick shakes. (okay, who's kidding who.........he only had to mention it once)

I think this had to be my favorite. A place called Swig ....... (if you click on "swig", it'll take you to their menu). Basically they take a dr pepper and add flavor. But I'm telling you, you cannot imagine the true magic of it until you've tried it. For me it was diet d.p. and peach puree (thanks Steve), and for Jaime -- a dirty diet d.p. (duhhh). I'm telling you, I didn't think there was any possible way to improve on d.p........I.WAS.WRONG. Only problem -- I can't hardly drink my d.p. without flavoring now --- it's just so yummy!!!

I want one here. Maybe they will franchise.......

(Told you they were random photos.....)

So once we left vegas, can't remember exactly where we stopped (potty break....) but I'm sure it was still in Nevada...... because not only was the truck stop attached to a casino, but the shelves were lined with fireworks.


We definitely weren't in Oregon any more.....



Anyway, I know this was a long post, so you should be applauded for sticking with it til the end..... We had an awesome time----enjoyed warm, sunny weather, spent a few days with all the fam, visited some fun places, saw some beautiful landscape....... Jaime's parents mentioned that they'd like us all to visit once a year --- I think that can be arranged.