Grosvenor Arch, Utah

We needed to go to Boulder to pick up some paintings, but we wanted to spend some time over there so we took the camper. When we got to Cannonville we turned off the highway and headed down the Cottonwood Road. I had planned to go down to Wahweap Creek or even Four Mile Canyon, but the road was rough all the way to Grosvenor Arch so the trip was slow. By the time we got to the Wahweap turn-off it was late, so I turned around and we camped along the impoundment above Grosvenor.

The clouds came in before dinner and it got dark early, but it made for a warm night since they served as insulation. In the morning, there was a biting north wind and the girls ate breakfast in the camper. We should have packed up right then, but I believed that it would clear up later in the afternoon, so we left the camper and drove to Boulder. By the time we returned, the clouds had set in above Powell Point, above Bryce Canyon, and above Canaan Mountain. It looked like we were in for some winter weather. We hustled to pack the camper in a drizzle. When we crossed the Paria there was a winter storm towering over us and filling the whole southern sky. We dodged storms all the way back to Parowan and had the truck unloaded just before a snowstorm covered town. It wasn't the best weekend for a campout.

http://picasaweb.google.com/aorlemann/GrosvenorArch#

Kanab, Utah

It was snowing on Friday when we left for Kanab, so, instead of driving over the Markagunt, we went around. The trip down to Hurricane was uneventful, but the bright afternoon sunlight and winter storm clouds were spectacular as we passed Gooseberry Mesa and Moccasin Peak. I was tempted by the light on the walls of Kanab Creek and by the turn-off to Toroweap, but we'd been in the truck long enough by the time Fredonia hove into view.

We stayed at Aikens Lodge in Kanab and attended The Business of Art seminar at the middle school. The organizers did a great job, and it was a pretty good program. Our only problem with it was that some of the invited speakers were academics and art-bureaucrats who were not interested in the practical problems involved with making a living as artists. As a result, their sessions were full of self-indulgently foolish art-speak and social consciousness mumbo-jumbo.

I was pretty much done with it after lunch, so I left Valerie and made a run out to Johnson Canyon. Once again, the light on the winter storm clouds was spectacular. By the time I made it to the GSENM boundary, however, there was no more light, only the darkness of a full winter blizzard. I loved it. I pulled off the road, opened the truck windows, and listened to the snow pelt the pinyon trees. Finally it was time to go back. I grabbed Valerie in Kanab and we made it to Cedar City in time for dinner.

http://picasaweb.google.com/aorlemann/KanabUtah#