Southern Utah

Anders had a Thanksgiving weekend soccer tournament in St. George. At first, we thought this would be an inconvenience. But as the week wore on, one of those sticky, smelly inversions settled in over the Salt Lake Valley; the kind where temperatures turn to ice and authorities start issuing warnings for people not to breathe. Suddenly, St. George seemed the perfect place to be.
I wouldn't say it was sunny and warm. To people who live in St. George, it probably was terribly cold. It rained, and it was cloudy much of the time, but when we woke up about 7 a.m. Saturday morning, a nearby bank sign said the temperature was 49 degrees. To us, that seemed like the tropics.

The picture at the top is from some mesas near the town of LaVerkin. We went there after the games to do some rock hunting. The winding road took us up pretty high, with some steep drop-offs. I didn't know Kirsti could turn those different shades of pale.

But we did find some interesting rocks and some petrified wood.

We also visited the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which I always had wanted to see. This is a picture of Kirsti there. It actually started to snow when I took this photo. I guess we needed to drive a bit further south to get warm.