Report from St George

Here we are in St George taking a few minutes

to tell you a little about our past month.
I took the picture to the right just yesterday morning. After 3 weeks of perfect weather we were hit by the same storms that smacked southern California. Yesterday morning we woke up to snow covered mountains in the distance with low clouds and red rocks in the foreground; a stunning picture. We weren't lucky enough to have views like this from the condo, but I didn't have to go far to snap this photo (and about 20 more). The red canyon in the distance is Snow Canyon which is a beautiful State park we explored last week.

In this shot, Ruthie and are at the end of Jenny's Canyon, a slot canyon near the entrance of the park. We think this makes us look a little intrepid, but it's really a short easy hike from the highway.

You get a better perspective of the canyon in this picture of Ruthie taken from a little more distance.

Early in the vacation we took a trip to Vegas to see the Jersey Boys show and do a little sightseeing. The show was great, and the next day we drove to Hoover Dam. They're building a new bridge at the dam to reduce traffic and security issues across the top of the dam. It was fascinating to watch the work going on overhead. We watched part of the construction crew being transported to the work area by way of a suspended cable car.

We're told that the water level in lake Mead behind the dam has actually risen in the past few years, but you can see from this photo that it's quite aways below peak levels (125 feet by my calculations).

We also took a day trip to Zion's Park and managed to get there on a perfect day (I think it's now covered with a couple of feet of snow). It's interesting to go through the park when the leaves are off the decidous trees, you see much more of the canyon walls as you're driving. We didn't see alot of wildlife, just some deer and wild turkeys, but it was a very enjoyable day.

We ate lunch in the park and our waiter insisted on taking our picture on the deck outside the restaurant. He was a nice guy and we don't really have many photos of the two of us together so we were grateful. He did get a slightly larger tip, but not as large as it could have been if had been more attentive to us during lunch. I think the offer to take our picture was an effort to make up for not bringing us water when we asked.

All in all, the past month has been very enjoyable, but we're getting anxious to head home. This is the longest we've every been away and it will still be a week or 10 days before we get back depending on the weather.