Day 3 of The Grand Circle

This morning we were up early and out the door, then on the bus for a ride to Zion National Park.  Everyone was excited about going to our first National Park today.

We made a stop at Checker Board mountain to get this great group picture.  Everyone was good about getting off the bus and getting together before taking their own pictures.  Thanks to all.
Here are a few pictures that I took today as we were going through Zion.

This is one of the tunnels that we went through today.  You can see the cuts in the walls from the boring machine that they used.  They only let traffic through one way at a time.  The sides are 11 feet 6 inches and the center is 13 plus feet.  This tunnel is just over 1 mile long.

They put these window in the tunnel so they had a way of getting material out of the tunnel.
We had a great day and seen some wild life.

It is amazing how sure foot these animals are.

One of our stops today was the Weeping Rock.  We had a hike of about 1/4 mile, but all up, at least I though so.  It was well worth the trip up to watch the water coming out of the sandstone.

You can see some of the water running pretty good out of a few places.

You can tell by some of the shirts there a few big drops falling from the roof of this out crop.  We had a great day and seen some great rock formations.

But the last stop of the day was a Ice Cream shop and gift store.  The Ice Cream was right up my alley.  I think just about everyone enjoyed and the shopping.  Tomorrow brings another day and the guest get a free day, so who knows where most of them will end up.  I heard one of them say I am going to the laundry mat first!!!

Day 2 of The Grand Circle Tour

This morning was up and at them, then on the road by 9:45 AM.  Not an early morning because we were car pooling about 2 miles to the center of St. George for a town tour of the history of St. George.

We learned that Mr. Young wanted to develop this area for growing cotton, grain, and food for the new community.  One of the things they did was have water shares, once a week each farmer could get water from these ditches for 4 hours to water their crops.

It was very interesting learning about how this town was started and has developed over the years.

We visited the Tabernacle.  This gentleman was represented Brigham Young when this town was first developed.  He talked about how this Tabernacle was build and the other buildings around here.

The next stop was the county court house and meet Judge MacFarlane. He was to hear a case about a farmer stealing water from the irrigation system of this area.  As stated before each farm was give a 4 hour time to water his fields.  Well he heard the a Farm by the name of Mr Overby had used a small rock to hold the gate open and watered his field, hoping not to get caught with his gate being open just a little.

 Judge MacFarlane, picked a jury to here the case.

After hearing the case the jury handed down a guilty charge.  At which time Mt Overby was speechless.  It was fun seeing a mock trial.
 

Our last stop was Brigham Young;s winter home.  Here are some pictures of his house.

It was amazing the wood work in this house and others that we had been through today. It looked like they had used all types of different woods. From cherry, maple, and  cast iron.  But the wood works used nothing but pine and a lot of paint to get the looks of Cased Iron like the fire place.  It was some great craftsmanship, put into all of the buildings, take a look at the nest few pictures and past and you can tell the great work these folks did.

  After a busy day of exploring the town of St George it was time to head back to the campground for a ice cream social, put on by the campground.

After everyone had there ice cream the owner of the campground Ira talked about how his family had been a important part of this town and the opening of this campground.  He also talked about some of the sights to see here in this area.  What a great guy with a lot of information.  We are hoping to get out to a couple of them on our free day. 

 Tonight's card game was a little smaller then pass nights.  There has been as many as 15 people playing.  I think to night a few of them headed to snow canyon. 

September 1st, Day 1 of Grand Circle ToUR

Today we started the first day of the Grand Circle Tour.  We are the tailgunners on this trip and really looking forward to all of the National Parks we will be going to see.  So for the next 32 days this will become a blog of what is happening on a Adventure Caravans Tour of the Grand Circle.  I hope that the readers of Cyndy &Wil's blog enjoy this trip through our eyes as much as we hope too.

We have some great Wagonmasters Jim & Betty Lenneman who are at the top of the steps, in the middle is Tailgunners Cyndy & yours truly.  We are blessed to have some great trainees with us Curtis & Jenine Overby.  We have some of the best guess on this trip, they all are having a great time and it is only the first day.

 As you can see the group is great, everyone got up and told where we were from and something about ourselves and what we were looking forward to on this trip.

Yes, their were plenty of snacks for everyone.  One of the things about our caravans is we love to feed our guess.

Jim & Betty did a game that was a great ice breaker for everyone.  It was a Christmas story about know right from left.  So everyone had a bag and every time Jim said left we passed left, if he said right we passed right.  We had a lot of fun with this.

Once in a while a few of us ended up with more than the one bay we were to have.

To finish of the day we had a great dinner catered to us.  What a way to finish a great day with great new friends.

Tomorrow we are going to do some exploring in the town of St George, UT.

August 29

We were at Carol's, Cyndy's cousin, for 2 days.  It was great seeing Carol & her brother Steve.

Oh yeah, this is Steve's little dog Lulu,  She was so nice it took her a while to get use to us, but her and Turbo had a blast playing.  A big dog like her being chased by Turbo, then it was her turn to chase Turbo.  It was fun to watch them play.
 Now Turbo had a little more problems getting to know Carol's dogs, seven small poodle's.

He was wanting out here but after a while they all got alone rally pretty good.  She also has 5 horses and Cyndy was able to get a couple of pictures of them.  They are Carol's big four legged pets.

It was nice visiting with the both of them.  We got to meet Steve's wife Sandy but forgot to take a picture.  They live close to each other and get along just great for brother & sister.  We are going to try and stop by on our way north next spring.
We left there places Thursday morning and head out for the start of the Grand Circle in St George.

 It has been a few years but the red rocks are so beutiful around this part of the country.

We got into St George about two in the afternoon and it was on it way up to 95 degrees.  It will be this way for a while.  They say the heat isn't bad down here because it is dry heat.  Well this little fat boy doesn't do very good in this heat, but it does feel good.  Just have to remember to drink lots of water.  Tomorrow I start inspection the rigs and on the first we start the rally.

August 26th

We have done pretty good the last couple of days.  We had great weather and open roads to travel on.

I-84 was not busy at all.  We set our speed just at 60 MPH and I didn't have to pass anyone.  The speeds here at 70 for trucks and 80 for cars, way to fast for me.  Doing 60 makes it easier on fuel and me.  We had a good two days of driving.  We are currently in Westpiont, UT tell tomorrow.  Then we will leave for St George for where our tour begins.

 

The country side around here is just beautiful, a lot of great farm land.  The only problem is when they finish harvesting.

  The machinery is just left where they finish harvesting.  Today we are going to visiting with family and then get ready for a long drive tomorrow.  We are going to drive 335 tell we stop again.