Bear and I toured the Frontier Homestead State Park, which was formerly the Iron Mission State Park in Cedar City.   The Seegmiller's were very involved in gathering historical stuff for it. 

Bear read all the stories on the walls about the lodges and the parks.  He was hired the year after Zion Lodge burned down. It was ready to open in late May.   We probably stayed and read for an hour.

Our friend Tom Walker's story was immortalized on a wall plaque.  Noel Williams had a great story in a book. Many other friends had written their memories of their time at the Utah Parks Company and we had a great time reminiscing.

Utah Parks Company is celebrating its 90th anniversary soon.  The 150th anniversary of Union Pacific is approaching. There is a Gala to celebrate both of those events on Oct. 13th in Cedar City on the SUU campus Library at 6:30 for hors d'oeuvres and 7:00 for great memories by Mary Ellen Edmunds and her brother Paul Edmunds both Zion employees!  Then they want us to perform our Sing-Away ......so I hope a lot of employees come, because Bear and I love to sing, but no one likes to listen to us sing.  There will be music and dancing to follow.  A great evening.  Only $10 per person.  We hope to see a lot of our friends there.

Rekindling Zion Friendships in Jackson

Annie Whiting Richardson ('69) lives in Jackson, Wyoming with her husband Cooper now on a bluff overlooking the Grand Tetons.  She loves to hike, bike, run the river, and quilt.  She helps seniors with their computers.  She has been a computer whiz for many years.  Jacque and Bear met up with her on their recent trip to Jackson. Over dinner, we reminisced, caught up and felt young again.  She gave us some suggestions for our trip, which made Bear's 65th birthday quite perfect.

Love Locks

Last year in April, we saw this new feature located at the walk-in entrance by the Zion Canyon Theater. The top read Hearts Together, Love Forever. There were a dozen little gold locks engraved with names on the chain. This year there were a hundred locks on it. Do you see the two lizards on the corner that make a heart with their tails? We picked the right lizards' tail that needed our lock.
We wandered over to the little store by the theater, and bought a Love Lock. I engraved it with the date that we met at Zion--1968.
Do you see our love lock on the right lizard's tail? Ever since we saw this cool feature, I wanted to add to it. By the way, Bear met his goal at Weight Watchers this week. He has worked so hard to lose 71 lbs. I'm proud of him.

April Fool's

Bear and I drove through Rockville on April 1st, and saw this crazy shoe tree. It must have been an April Fool's joke. Dozens of shoes flew around in the wind like bats. We drove through Rockville on a Sunday afternoon...expecting to see "pretty quilts all on a line" (we were listening to that song on the Red Rock Rondo CD as we drove through Rockville.) As we drove through Virgin, we listened to "Big Rock" on the same CD sung by our friend Hal Cannon. He and his wife have moved to Virgin.
It had rained and snowed on the way down to Zion. We stayed in St. George (April 1-4), but went straight to Zion to see the amazing display of low clouds blanketing the familiar landscape. It looked like the mountain had been on fire with lingering smoke throughout the canyon.
The Visitor's center was encircled with thick clouds. We hadn't seen this display before. We got to go on the shuttle to the lodge. It was the first day of operation. It was quite busy with tourists already. We planned to take some hikes, but the wind and the temperatures discouraged that. We will come back on Tuesday for that.