Cannonville, Utah

Good morning, my friends. We've moved along to Cannonville this morning. It was a fairly short drive to reach the new spot. We were just five miles away and an hour too early, and so we stopped in a very small town for some lunch. While we were eating, a text message came in from the RV park asking when we thought we might check in. Probably, it was somebody's Friday (everybody's Friday, actually), and they were hoping to leave early. In any case, very friendly folks here. 

The park is nothing fancy, but nice enough. It's also an equine park, and so we'll probably walk down and visit the horses at some point over the next few days. We'll be here until Tuesday morning. We have wi-fi here, and I'm told a very weak cell signal unless we have Verizon. Thankfully, we do. So let's just see if I can upload some pictures. Fingers crossed. Aaaannnnnnnnd? It works!!!!! Yay!!!!

So, okay. Here we go. It was a beautiful drive getting here...designated scenic highways on the map from start to finish. For most of the drive, we were on Hwy 89. 

We passed through a lovely valley with a few barns.

Fall color is starting to appear on some of the trees.

Sorry for the power lines in this next image. Lines of Cottonwoods like the image below, generally indicate the presence of a river or stream.

And, sure enough...there it is.

As we approached the turn-off for Hwy 12, we started seeing more red rocks.

Hwy 12 leads to Bryce Canyon National Park. We've both been to Bryce Canyon as kids and together as adults, and so we won't visit this time around. Still, the landscape tells us the national park is nearby.

A sign indicated a tunnel ahead with a clearance of 13'6". No worries. We were well under that.

As we rode along, I had an idea we would enter two tunnels in quick succession.

I remembered traveling this road in the opposite direction, from Escalante, Utah, to Kanab some years ago.

And sure enough! Here they are. Sorry about the glare off the windshield. That's one tunnel...

Two tunnels! (Too bad The Count isn't here to continue counting.)

So, it isn't just the national park. It's the whole area, and it all looks a lot like the national park.

Continuing on...

This scenic highway is listed in my book. Today's drive will be to Panguitch, which is the "official" start of the National Scenic Byway, and so I'll guide our tour as we make our return trip today.

When we reached our final destination, nothing would do until Smitty and I took our shadow selves out for a walk. There was almost no one in the park when we arrived, and so it was smooth sailing for cats who are mindful of woofies and Mans.

We looked all around for some suitable Mew-tah grass. This stuff was not to his liking at all. It was too dry and stickery. 

We could hear horses neighing in the distance. Then, we heard Mans talking, and that was enough for us to cut short our walk.

I tried to get him to walk down this path directly behind our rig.

It leads to a wash on the other side of the trees. It's mostly dry, but there is a small stream of water flowing there.

On my way back, I took pictures of every blooming thing. My phone tells me that this is Gumweed.

It tells me this is "Mallow." I've seen mallow before in different forms. These flowers are much smaller than what I've seen in the past, but who am I to argue with my phone? (My phone is very smart.)

Of course, these have been blooming virtually everywhere this trip. Sometimes, there is just a singleton, like this one.

I like the blooming grasses too, although these can give me a bad case of hayfever.

As the afternoon wore on, more and more people arrived to fill in the empty spaces. We're packed pretty closely here, but we've seen worse. Also, our next-door neighbors have not one, but two woofies. Sadie was appalled when these two moved in. There goes the neighborhood.

For dinner last night, I tried a recipe that came down from the NYTimes while we've been traveling. We looked for fish while we were in Kanab. The only thing they had that was suitable was this Atlantic salmon. And it was good. It's super easy, and it's one of those recipes that you can put in the oven, set a timer, and then sit down. This is One-Pan Fish with Cherry Tomatoes. On the side...a pear salad. The salad is a combination of the way Mike's mom and my mom did this. It's a scoop of cottage cheese, several canned pear halves, a bit of canola mayo on top, and then some grated cheddar. It's one of Mike's favorite salads. If I'm feeling really fancy, I sprinkle some paprika on it for color. 

I'll give you the recipe for the fish right here. I didn't do any of the lemon zest, basil, nor mint at the end. I thought I had a lemon, but then couldn't find it in our tiny refrigerator. Maybe it's there, and maybe it's not. In any case, it would have been more of a decoration than anything else. We though it was fine without any of that. Also, I only made half the fish, but used all of the tomatoes. Here's the recipe if you want to give it a try. 

So that's all I have for you this morning. We have four nights here (three now). As I mentioned, today's goal is to visit the town of Panguitch, some 30 miles away. I mentioned Panguitch in yesterday's post. It has an interesting history related to quilts. I've linked to it there, and I would encourage you to read the story. From that, you'll understand why I wanted to visit. And there is a quilt shop there, which would be reason enough to visit even without the town's history.

And with that, I'll leave you to your day. I hope it's a good one. And I'm thinking of you if you're in New York City right now. Yikes! Stay safe and dry.