Labor Day Weekend in Cedar City

Labor weekend Connor and Gabe headed off to California to see their dad, so David and I decided to check out the beauties of southern Utah.  We rented a delightful B&B that turned out to be a newly built Shakespearean timeshare condo that no one was renting except for us (the bad economy was driving the owner to bankruptcy).  We had the whole spacious place to ourselves with pillow top comfy bed and a cook that showed up every morning at the time we specified to fix us a yummy hot breakfast.  Talk about spoiled rotten.....

Cedar City is known for the Shakespeare Festival and we took in "Merchant of Venice" and the bloody, but well done "McBeth".  The theatre was located right on the campus of SUU where the thespians entertained before the play and David couldn't resist a bag of roasted nuts.  We spent Sunday with Jolene and Dale Heit, long time friends of mine from Bellflower (we also lived for 6 years in the same ward in Antioch, CA).  We went to church with them and then ate dinner with them and visited with some of their grown children.  Good memories.  One night we dined in a rustic restaurant a short drive up the canyon, but other than that it was munching on fresh veggies we had picked from our garden and seeing the majestic sights that only God could orchestrate.

Ten miles south of Cedar City is access to the northern portion of Zion National Park.  This hike through the slot canyons, much of it walking through cold water, was nothing short of beautiful.

We spent one day hiking through Bryce Canyon with amazing rock formations.  Take a little sand stone and add water, wind, snow, and time....

On Sunday we drove out to see the sight of the Mountain Meadows Massacre (not a pretty chapter of Mormon history).  I was surprised that this solemn spot was closer to St. George than to Cedar City.  Sad what can happen to good people whose leaders get misdirected because they didn't wait for a response from the prophet.   Lesson:  Follow the current prophet.

Over one hundred people were killed here.