Since
the Iron Horse offered no breakfast we stopped at McDonalds before continuing
south into Sanpete and Sevier
Counties. The most memorial cache for me in these
counties was Chief Blackhawk which was one of two caches we got commemorating
the Blackhawk war. My comment for this
one that it looked like the Chief was a body builder.
In
order to pick up Piute
County we were going to
have to do an out and back route down to Marysvale. In planning the route I was disappointed to
have to make this sort of detour but it turned out to be well worth it. Highway 89 down to Marysvale was a beautiful
ride and we got a cache right across from the Big Rock Candy Mountain
(one of my favorite childhood songs sung by Burl Ives).
We
enjoyed our ride back out of Piute
County and got on the
Interstate
heading west and then south toward Beaver. We hurriedly picked up a couple of caches in
Beaver as we could see a thunderstorm approaching. Just as the storm hit we pulled off into a gas
station/restaurant with a roof over the gas pumps. Yancey was really in luck because not only
did he not have rain gear but it was noon and the restaurant was a Mexican
one. It was a real downpour and it was
nice to have a leisurely lunch in a dry spot.
By the time we finished the storm had pretty much abated but I donned my
rain gear anyway. I was glad I had
because we hit another fairly fierce burst of rain after getting back on the
Interstate. Fortunately it was brief and
the sun soon returned before we stopped for the next cache. Yancey’s larger windshield had kept him from
getting too wet.

We
picked up a couple of
caches in Iron
County before reaching
Parawan where we got “Parowan's Most Muggle Proof Geocache”. It was a metal box attached to a building
locked with a horizontal alphabetical combination lock. The hint was “Found” and that was the
combination to the lock. From there we
began the ascent into Cedar
Breaks National
Monument.
It was a beautiful ride but I got cold before stopping near the summit
and putting on my windbreaker. We
entered the viewing area and we both agreed that it reminded us of an
unheralded place out in a Wyoming
desert that we had seen the previous year where a science fiction movie had
been filmed. At any rate, it was quite
spectacular. This was just a sample of
what was to come the next couple of days.
After
leaving the Breaks we turned west and headed down the mountain toward Cedar City. This should have been a great motorcycle ride
but we had the only close calls of the trip.
All the cracks in the road (and there were so many that in places they
literally covered the road) had been patched with fresh tar. Motorcyclists call these “tar snakes” and
they can really bite you. When I first
got into these I pulled over to check my tires because my bike was not feeling
stable. Even after determining the
problem we both almost went down when hitting these “tar snakes” leaned over in
a curve. I had to put a foot down at one
point to keep upright. I was freaked out
for a day or so every time I saw a “tar snake” but I eventually discovered that
it was only the fresh ones that tended to melt in the heat and these were the
only ones we encountered.
At
this point we were headed toward Chuck’s and Joanne’s home in Ivins just
northwest of St. George. Chuck is
Kathy’s brother and he and Joanne have made Ivins their home for a number of
years. They have a beautiful home in
this fantastic desert country. It was
hot though. It was Chuck’s birthday so
we celebrated by going to a buffet and Yancey treated us. There was supposed to be a meteor shower that
night so I stayed up till midnight with Chuck but I saw only 3 or 4.
Joanne
washed all my dirty clothes and I had a nice comfortable bedroom with no
snoring in earshot and a computer to upload all my caches. Pretty sweet.
(To be continued) M/W
4 comments:
What a nice treat to stay and Uncle Chuck's and Aunt Joanne's!
I guess Yancey is still known for snoring, huh?
Yep.
Hey, come on. I did bring ear plugs for the old man, and we all know how his hearing is...
Yancey -- LOL. He's not hard of hearing when it comes to barking dogs and snoring.
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