Day 23 - La Verkin - Grafton - Gooseberry Mesa

We're back at River Rock Coffee in La Verkin.  Wendy is explaining the pizza of the day, while Ellie licks her chops.  Oh, yeah – today is "guess the customer's age day" at the coffee shop.  That's their guess for Wendy.

Crossing the Virgin River at Rockville is our ticket to adventure today.

Your guess is as good as ours.

Grafton ghost town.  There is a church and several buildings to explore.  Unfortunately, the church is closed, but all of the other buildings are open.

Meet Braden, one of the restorers working on Grafton.  His father-in-law Russell is the master smith in this enterprise. 

Dancer in the window.

Russell, master restorer.

Wonder how many kids climbed this tree – or climbed onto the roof to climb this tree?

A splash of light.

Can light float?

Two slits in time.

Illumination on the stairs to nowhere.

Light line.

4 o'clock on the farm.

The backdrop for Grafton is Zion National Park.

Ellie Ellie farm dog.

One of my missions for this visit to southern Utah was to find abandoned movie sets.  It's mostly been a bust:  one movie set is on private property and is inaccessible (Johnson Canyon), another burned to the ground in 2006 (Paria Canyon) and a third is now a roadside amusement park (Kanab).  This cabin was brought into Grafton specifically for the "Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head" sequence from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).  We just watched the sequence, and it is indeed shot in that meadow (it was still an orchard in 1969).  We saw much of Grafton, the church, the barn – but not this cabin.  Huh!

Grafton Cemetery – still visited by families.

Last light Grafton Cemetery.

Moonrise over hacienda and cows.

After a very bumpy 4WD climb out of Grafton onto the Gooseberry Mesa, we are rewarded with this crazy view (and a crazy dropoff) of Zion.

The Grand Canyon has a hard time beating this view. And there's no one else here.

View towards Hurricane and St George.

Once again, Wendy and Ella find themselves on the wrong side of the security fence.

Racing the darkness back to Kanab.

So darkness was not foiled tonight. But we still made it in for a cuppa made with our new fangled machine – and a delicious pumpkin flan from Kanab Bakery. They are awesome!

 

 

 

 

 

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