August, 2003.  We have now been in Cannonville for three and a half months.  Our time here is getting short. We are taking three days in September to visit the north rim of the Grand Canyon.  Then, we will be leaving on October 18 for a rendevous in Branson, MO with our good friends Pappy and Cecile Doughty from north Georgia.  Our time here has flown by and we have not been able to do all the things we wanted to do.

Still on our agenda (and hopefully to be done before we leave) a trip to Powell Point, a day trip down Cottonwood Canyon Rd in the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument and then returning via Skutumpah and Johnson Canyon Rd in the Monument.  We haven't done either of these because it has been monsoon season here in south central Utah. While we have had very little rain here, those locations mentioned above have had some serious rains in the last month to six weeks.

Just a couple of weeks ago, a huge thunderstorm was approaching us here in Cannonville.  However, it stalled up the valley, sitting right over Tropic, UT for several hours.   Tropic is just 5 miles north of us.  They received 5 inches of rain, more than all the rest of the year to date.  A flash flood insued and mud, rocks and many gallons of water poured down Bryce Way, the main east west street of this small town.  Many of the homes with basements wound up with mud and water in them.  Highway 12 was covered in a thick brown ooze and lots of damage occured.

      The flood cometh                                                                    Full river bed                                                                           The next morning

Here in Cannonville, we joined most of the rest of the village on the bridge on Highway 12 to wait for the flood to arrive.  Just before dark, a small stream of water, mud and debris appeared in the normally bone dry Paria river.  It quickly became a bank to bank torrent of mud, boulders, trees and whatever else was carried into the riverbed.  I estimate it was about 4 feet deep and was just an incredible site (and sound).  One of the local folks told us that he had only seen one flood worse in his lifetime here in the Cannonville area.

So, what have we done during August.  We traveled to St. George, the Parawon Gap, Beaver and and several other areas near Cannonville.  We also bought six new tires for The Rolling Home. (OUCH!)  A quick $1800.  Our front tires were starting to show wear on the outside edges and the outside driver's side dually had weather checking in it.  We have just about 50,000 miles on the rig and the tires were very close to five years old.  It was our decision to bite the bullet and go ahead with new shoes for our motorhome.  Now we should be ok for the next five years or so.

One day we drove over to Parawon, UT to visit the petroglyphs at the Parawon Gap.   The Parawon Gap is a pass through some hills.  Early Piute and maybe Anasasi Native Americans left us lots of graffiti along with early Mormon explorers.  The Mormons left their names and dates, the Native Americans left us---well, we really don't know for sure.  Some of the artwork is surely a solar calendar but the rest seems to be a mystery to folks who know about these things. 

The campground was busy for the first couple of weeks of August and then it slowed down.  Labor Day weekend was pretty good and we expect a steady if somewhat dimished stream of visitors during September.

We did a three hour ATV trip into Casto Canyon.  Casto Canyon is one of Butch Cassidy's old hideouts.  We had a great time on this trip and got to see some really neat areas that we would not have gone to on foot.
 

One day on our way to Cedar City for groceries, we stopped on Cedar Mountain in the Dixie National Forest.  We went to the visitor center and got instructions on how to find the Ice Cave.  We drove back some rough dirt roads and eventually, we did find the ice cave.  The picture is a little tough to figure out, but the white spot is snow.  There is more ice in the back of this cave where early settlers stored goods that needed to be preserved.  We took this picture in August and it was just amazing that the ice and snow were still there.

Last week we drove to Kanab for the third time and played golf at the Coral Cliffs golf course.  Earlier in the month, we visited the Moqui Cave near Kanab and took pictures of dinosaur tracks.  On our way back to Cannonville, we drove through the Friends of Animals animal refuge.  It is in Angel Canyon near Kanab.  This is the largest animal shelter we have ever seen. It must have been along both sides of the road for 5 or 6 miles.  Quite impressive.

Golfing in Kanab was really great.  The background scenery at the golf course is just unbelievable.

In the middle of September, we will be moving The Rolling Home to the north rim of the Grand Canyon for a three day trip.
Film at 11!

Camping for August      $0
Diesel Fuel for August    $0
LP for August                $0