7-10-2015 St. George, UT

Brigham Young was born in 1801, the son of a veteran of the Revolutionary War.  He had 11 days of formal education and his mom taught him to read.  He learned to work with glass and wood and that came in handy when he started building cities and temples.  In fact, he gave Miles Romney, Mitt’s great grandpa, pointers on how to modify the lovely spiral staircases in the St. George Tabernacle. Miles was insulted, by the way, because he considered those staircases his “crowning achievement.” Once again, management trumps talent.  Anyway, back to the story.

 Brigham Young wasn’t born a Mormon, that book fell into his hands when he was 29 years old.  I’m guessing that he believed in polygamy since he wound up fathering 57 kids and I don’t think any one wife would’ve put up with that!  In fact, he had at least one wife with whom he didn’t have kids so we know that at least a few of them must have thrown the horny old goat off a couple of times.

He lived in Salt Lake, mostly, but had pretty bad health toward the end and became a “snowbird,” building a home in St. George for the winter months.

Brigham Young's winter home & Old Rob

This original home still stands and is furnished with quite a few pieces that were owned by the Young family, including their china and furniture made of

pine table painted to look
like mahogany

pine and painted to look like oak and mahogany.  He lived in this home only a few years, dying in 1877.

pine balcony painted to look
like oak

There are numerous historical places still standing and in operation in St. George.  One is the Thomas Judd Store Co., a mercantile that traded in just about everything but mostly candy and other treats.  It is still open for business, featuring a soda fountain, baskets of old candies and wooden cases of bottled soda.  They will prepare an ice cream cone or make you a root beer float.  Back then, they also pumped Dixie gasoline.

OH NO!  A "Dixie" gas pump

 (The name Dixie is prevalent around here but there are a bunch of liberals in this town who now think that the name “Dixie” should be eliminated, all that reference to confederacy and slavery, don’tchaknow.  Fortunately, so far, they have been outvoted and roundly chastised.)

Inside Judd's Store

The Mormons were a hard-working lot, like ants.  The Morris House, for example, was scheduled for demolition but it was decided to move the house instead and rescue nearly a century of history.  Power lines were even taken down to allow the flatbed containing the house to pass.  On the final lap, the flatbed tripped over a curb, an axle broke, tie-down cables snapped and the whole house collapsed in a heap.  The people were devastated and painstakingly reassembled the home one brick at a time.  Another fellow, Benjamin Pendleton, wanted a home but only had 3 forms for making bricks.  So he made 3, waited for them to dry and cure, then made 3 more.  When he had enough bricks, he built his home.  Most of the old homes, including the Young Winter Home, were built to fend off the oppressive Summer heat with 18” thick walls.

Snow Canyon State Park is named for Erastus Snow who founded St. George and became the President of the Cotton Mission.  The park is an amazing display of lava flows and enormous red and white steeple formations, red containing ferric oxide and white lacking it.  The majesty and contrast against the deep blue sky is striking.

Snow Canyon State Park
 & red Jeepster

Snow Canyon State Park & red rocks

Careful where you step and do not piss off the constrictor king snake, one of which, Jake the Snake, lives in comfort and joy at the park ranger’s office after a car sort of flattened a few feet of him.  Another animal is one you will not see, the chuckwalla.  So many tourists have captured and kidnapped them for pets that the poor iguana-like creature has been all but eliminated from the wildlife population of the park.  This speaks volumes to those who would hug trees and “preserve nature.” You can’t buy an iguana, you have to swipe one from the wilderness?  How do you cuddle up with a lap-iguana, anyhow?  Maybe Little Iggy sleeps on your pillow?

We are having so much fun that we scheduled 2 additional days, first, to play pickleball.  As for the courts, 12 more are materializing before our eyes at Little Valley.  Their goal is 24 courts and then they will qualify for senior and other national competitions.  Three to four hours of play for 7 days straight and I am wasted!  I am also exhausted from playing pickleball.

The other reasons we had to stay extra days are, second, we had to eat one more time at Cappeletti’s.  Third, we had to attend the Hubcaps oldies concert

Rockin' out to The Hubcaps
in the St. George Tabernacle

in the Mormon Tabernacle.  This evening, Jeremiah was not a prophet.   He was a bullfrog wearing blue suede shoes in a tabernacle!  The gray-haired elderly brothers (and sisters) snapped their fingers and sang all the words!  Goodness gracious, great balls of fire!  God, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Beatles and Elvis were in the building tonight rocking out on the altar!

Well, it is time to activate Bee’s homing device.  These are all the words I have left in my fingers so good bye for now , my faithful t-loggers, and hello Pahrump.