Extremes

This is how our weekend started out.

And this is how it ended.

On Friday we went to Marysvale canyon to ride the bike trail that is built on the old railroad grade. 

We rode up the Canyon to Big Rock Candy Mountain (remember the 1950's song by Burl Ives?) and then rode down the canyon in a headwind.  So much for easy coasting downhill.  At least our legs were fresh going up. The river is quite high.  We have had unseasonably hot weather lately so there is a lot of runoff right now, which is why the river is so muddy.  It was a nice ride...16 miles round trip and the weather was perfect for riding; overcast and about 60 degrees.

The Fremont Indian state park is just a few miles away and we hiked some of the trails up to the petroglyphs which are absolutely amazing.  They were etched, chipped or chiseled into the rock around 1100 A.D.  Their meaning is unknown.  The Fremonts lived in Utah and in a few of the surrounding areas.  They are not related to the Anasazi and this rock art is the only remains in nature of the largest colony of Fremonts ever found.

There are 697 panes of petroglyphs here in the park, most of which are extremely accessible and easy to hike to.  Their buried lodges were excavated when the freeway was built in the 1983; such a shame that the road had to go through this archaeological treasure.   The museum was built to house the artifacts that were found. 

The scenery here is wonderful.  This is the mountainous desert Southwest at its' finest.   There is such diversity  in our landscape.

It was past lunchtime so we stopped and ate sandwiches at the Ideal Dairy before heading home.

Saturday morning it was still raining and we couldn't mow the lawn, so we headed out on a car trip through Fairview Canyon to Helper and the town museum.  On the way there, we drove through Scofield.  My great-grandfather died there at the Winter Quarters Coal Mine in the 5th largest mine disaster in American history.  200 men died that May 1st, 1900.  The museum was really great, and  we ate lunch in the old mercantile building on Main street.

The summit of Fairview canyon (which is a scenic byway and so very beautiful) is about 10,000 ft. above sea level.  It was raining all day and about 4 miles before the summit we encountered snow.  Don't you love the sign about fires at the summit?....DUH!!!  Do they really need to tell people not to build fires on the asphalt?  Apparently so.  There were 3 inches of snow sticking on the ground on June 12th going further down the canyon.  We were driving 20 mph in 2nd L gear and in 4 wheel drive down the mountain, and I was hoping we wouldn't slide off a 200 foot cliff.  We slowly and safely made our way down  but we passed 2 police cars with sirens going up very fast. Someone wasn't as fortunate or as cautious.  

The owls are still here in the yard.  I guess they'll stay until the food runs out.

Don't forget to enter my CSN giveaway.  There are only 2 days left.