Utah!

On Feb 11 we left for Phoenix and didn’t return to Boise until Feb 25. We took Kevin, went (down, longitude-wise – or up, elevation-wise) to Utah, picked up Karen, and wound our way south through Utah via Kanab and Page to Phoenix where we spent 10 great days at Doug’s house.

We lived in Phoenix from 1967 to 1979, so have traveled that route dozens of times, but always with a car filled with kids and dogs, and even cats and plants, and assorted relatives – and usually during the summer months. So traveling with adults during the winter was breathtakingly new to us.

Snow covered the farmland; herds of deer rooted in the snowy fields, and rafters of wild turkeys shared warm tree-protected alcoves of snowless ground with cattle.

Meandering creeks cut through the vastness of the white – the snow banks curving right down to touch the water, where, every now and then a mallard duck pair, bottoms up, searched for food.

Where the flat farmland ended, juniper trees dotted the snow, and then magnificent red sandstone cliffs rose straight up out of the white. God and his committee of earth-builders have to be proud of Southern Utah.

BIRDS
Golden Eagle
American Bald Eagle
Common Crow
Common Raven
Red-tailed Hawk
Ferruginous Hawk
American Kestrel
Yellow-billed Magpie
Mallard
Ring-billed gull
Meadowlark
Mourning Dove
Wild Turkey