Out and about in the local countryside

We went for a ride out to collect a bargain: two leather boardroom chairs, purchased for only $14 on the local web yard sale. We stopped at a local cemetery, which had some  delightfully gnarly old trees, which I later discovered are in fact only a few years old.  A memorial recorded that because of wind, fire, and other unfortunate events—the latter unspecified, so some research is needed to solve this mysterious turn of phrase—there are many burials for which the exact locations are no longer known. So much for resting in peace.

The cemetery was built on a small plateau of higher ground at an elevation of 3,267 feet, just outside the small town of Toquerville. It is just up the road a conveniently short way from the old winery, former home of the polygamist John C. Naegle and his famous Nail's Best vintage. In the good old days, when the 'Word of Wisdom' was just advice and not a strongly worded memo from head office, wine was still being used in the Mormon sacrament services. A directive to use only water was issued by the local St. George Stake on 09 July 1892, although production for selling to those outside the faith continued to be allowed (wink).

Some of the cemetery residents were incomers like me; some were even from my own country. Looking out from the green swards of the cemetery, westward are the bleak landscapes of the Colorado Pleateaus, and eastwards are the loftier but better vegetated slopes of the basin & range country of the southern end of the Great Basin area of the Intermountain West. The eagle-eyed will notice the water tower on the skyline of the first picture, part of an installation with a rocket sled test track for ejector seats located atop of the mesa. The mountains in the second picture were the source of trees to make the original cedar organ pipes for the LDS (Mormon) temple in Salt Lake City.

I delayed my evening walk until it was cooler: the forecast of 75°F was one degree too high and the weather station at White Reef, located on the lower slopes of that back range in the last picture, recorded 74°F (23.3°C) from 5pm to 6pm. When I set out at 6:45pm the sun was already sinking and there was cool, fresh air tumbling down off the hill above me. In the right conditions, adiabatic lapse rate and downslope sinking cool air masses are our friends.

The moon was up and the birds were all settling down to roost for the night.

A bird on a wire. I thought I might be so late that I would be walking home by moonlight.

A moon light. Aw, c'mon! You must have seen that one coming!

I was so intent on watching the sky to the west for the by now almost obligatory sunset shot…

…that I almost missed this strange effect above the hill to the east. Original pixels 800x600 cropped from full frame.

Then it was home by the light of the silvery moon, assisted by streetlight Nº25. Oh, they are both Nº25! That is confusing.

 

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