Pat Bean's blog

“Happy the man, and happy he alone, he who can call today his own; he who, secure within, can say, tomorrow do they worst, for I have lived today.” John Dryden

My RV site in Watchman Campground offered views of canyon walls in all directions. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

While leaving what many consider America’s most beautiful road behind me, this didn’t mean an end to the scenic landscape.

Highway 89, from its junction with Highway 12 south to Highway 9 continued to be an awesome rural drive with views of mountains, cliffs and roadside streams that this day were full and broad. .

The highway briefly passed through another section of Dixie National Forest and through the small towns of Glendale, Orderville and Mount Carmel, all early Mormon settlements begun at the command of the religion’s prophet, Brigham Young, between 1862 and 1875. Historic rock structures from those early days can still be seen today.

Each morning and evening I watched as the sun lit up the cliffs like a neon sign. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Orderville was the Mormon church’s failed attempt at communal living and Glendale and Mount Carmel, the earlier settlements, were abandoned because of Indian attacks. Many of Orderville’s men, meanwhile, were arrested because of their continued polygamous way of life after it was banned in the United States.

I left 89 at Mount Carmel Junction, where sits the Thunderbird Motel and Golf Course, and headed west on Highway 9. Thirteen miles later I entered Zion National Park, and traveled its winding road lined with colorful sandstone formations that boggle the eyes another 13 miles to the Watchman Campground.

The drive included passing through a 1.1-mile long tunnel that cuts through a mountain. The tunnel, built in the late 1920s, is narrow and dark. My very first drive through it took place in the 1960s, when one could park in a pullout and get out and look out one of the tunnel’s vast windows to a view of the canyon below.

My dog, Maggie, tried to chase a lizard into this cactus. Fortunately she was on a leash and I pulled her back. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Those pullouts are now blocked, and traffic is often regulated to one-way because today’s larger vehicles, like my RV, Gypsy, Lee, need to keep to the center line to keep from scraping the lower sides of the tunnel roof. I paid $15 for this center-line driving privilege.

I have visited Zion National Park over 30 times. This Southern Utah landmark, where peregrine falcons nest, mountains glow at sunrise and sunset, and the Virgin River tumbles downward in gurgling splashes, is my special place in the universe.

Hooking up my RV to electricity in Loop B in of the Watchman Campground, with the guardian mountain looking down on me, filled my soul with peace and contentment.

I was thankful that the coming week’s journey in my life would all be spent right here.

Continuing day 11 of the journey, April 29, 2011