A day of rest

Hurricane, UT – When we got back from church today, we had ideas about tour-ing various points of interest in the area, but it was a per-fectly beautiful day and we had no particular agenda, so we decided to take the day off!

We sat out on our lawn chairs, in the shade of the RV and with the breathtaking mountains to our left, changing colours as the sun played on their various contours, and put our feet up with a good book.  It was warm enough not to need sweaters or jackets, and a pleasant breeze was blowing, carrying with it the warbles of quail in the distance.

One of the things we bought yesterday was a wall clock for the RV which includes a weather station.  We found just the right hardware to hang it on the wall without making any holes, so today we went about reading the instructions for the hook hardware and for the weather station.  There is a remote sensor that goes outside, as well as the clock part inside, so you can read on it what the temperature is indoors and out, and even whether it’s going to rain or shine. The installation went very well, and we’ve been checking it with great interest.

For example, it was 81 degrees outside while we were eating our supper, but once the sun was down it plummeted to 61! That’s just fun, but there are times when it is very helpful to know what’s going on out there before opening the RV door.

After a pleasant interlude in our lawn chairs, we set off for a short drive to have a better look at Quail Creek State Park, about a mile from the RV park.  The creek feeds a lake, which is really a reservoir, formed by a dam at the south end. We’ve passed the “lake” several times since we got here, and it’s amazing how the colour of the water changes. It’s been gun-metal grey at dusk, navy blue at high noon and a startling turquoise green in late afternoon. Beautiful, and as we learned when we strolled down to the water’s edge, cold.

The creek was a draw-ing point for the small community that started up here in the late 1860s, led by Moses Harris from San Bernardino, California. The six families who came used the endless supply of rocks in the area to build their barns and homes and the fences that set off their farms. Ruins of some of those houses still stand along the highway near the RV park; the families drifted away after too many disastrous floods from the creek.  But the town’s name remains: Harrisburg. It’s a tiny hamlet just north of our park with horse paddocks, farm houses and a couple of corner stores.

We crowned the evening with a viewing of the final episode of Downton Abbey, Season 4, which we’d missed when it was broadcast. We’d managed to see all the other episodes during our travels, but couldn’t find a PBS station for the last show.  However, part of our lucky day yesterday included a visit to the Barnes and Noble bookstore near the cinema, where we found the DVD set, and, lucky us, got 30 per cent off at the cash register!