Day 38 Mt. Carmel

This morning was the first day that the world seemed covered in frost. We had breakfast with the Maxwells – Belgian waffles made by Kara, covered in fresh raspberries from the Maxwell’s garden and real maple syrup. We had to go to Kanab to pick up some things so I got a later start on my walking, but by then the sun was shining and the weather had warmed considerably.

Kara dropped me off just past Orderville where I had ended my walk yesterday. Somewhere between Orderville and Mt Carmel, a pickup full of “stuff” pulled off the road near a cornfield I was walking past. I could hear laughter coming from the cornfield. A woman got out of the truck and whistled and soon two teenagers came running out of the field to unload the truck. They started with a large pink striped tiger followed by a giant penguin. More kids appeared and hauled off a worn out dummy of a cowboy with a rope around his neck. Naturally I had to find out what was going on. The woman who had been driving the truck turned out to be the owner of the cornfield, and her youngest son and a group of his 9^th grade friends were staging a spook alley in the cornfield for a fund raiser this weekend. She let me know that she had another crew these guys didn’t know about lined up to inhabit the cornfield to scare the 9^th graders. The other group was her older son and his friends. She was pretty excited about it.

Just before entering Mt Carmel, I passed the Maynard Dixon home and Studio. Maynard Dixon was one of the most prominent and innovative Western artists of the early 20th Century. Many of his greatest works were created while he lived in Mt. Carmel. There is an art studio next to his home, but none of his art is in it. I thought that was a bit strange.

I continued to walk and soon arrived at Mt Carmel Junction. The White Mountain Trading Post is a Shell station/convenience store/tourist trap. I had been there several times before and had always been fascinated with the décor as well as the things you could buy in there. Years ago, my friend Paul McFate bought his favorite hat there – a leather cowboy hat. I had him drape what could have passed for a saddle blanket over his shoulder and he grabbed a cheese stick and stuck it in his mouth and the next thing we knew, we had Clint Eastwood standing before us.

I noticed they had a couple of jackalopes on the wall. I was reminded of one of the stories Vaughn Butler from my old neighborhood used to tell. Vaughn had a state congressman and his son down in his basement looking at hunting equipment when the congressman noticed a jackalope on Vaughn’s wall. He had never seen such a thing and he was fascinated by it. As a good will gesture, Vaughn offered to have his son take the congressman’s son on a jackalope hunt. They returned later that day. The congressman’s son was disappointed and empty handed. So the congressman said, “What’s the matter, didn’t you see any jackalopes?” To which the son replied, “They were all over dad, but it was buck only and all we saw was does.” Vaughn has a million stories like that. It is up to the rest of us to figure out which ones are real.

From Mt Carmel Junction, I left Highway 89 and headed up Highway 9 toward Zion Canyon. I had a long and grinding hike up a hill, but now the worst of my walk is over. I still have a few hills to go up and a lot to go down, but it should be relatively easy going from here into St George. I will be there by the first weekend in November. See you there?