On Thursday, Dec. 27, Tiff and I took off on our book research trip to Springdale/Zion. We had wanted to leave on the 26th, but didn't trust the weather, so we waited one more day. Mom and Dick decided they wanted to come with us so that we could drop them off in St. George on our way. Dennis picked them up in Sandy and delivered them here just before 11:00, so we were on our way by 11:00. The weather was fine here, but we ran into snow showers right about Santaquin. We then had intermittant snow showers all the way from there to Beaver. Mom requested a rest stop in Fillmore. We thought to stop at Larry's Drive-In, but there were tons of cars there and no place to park. We went to the convenience store next door and parked in the handicap spot right by the front door and were able to get Mom in and out without too much difficulty. We had packed some ham sandwiches before leaving, so we didn't even need to stop for lunch. We kept going from Fillmore on past Beaver and Cedar City and on to St. George. The weather was great from Beaver on, like winter was some place else. So we were glad about that. We got to St. George about 3:30, and got Mom and Dick back into their house. What a relief to have them out of the snow and ice! Tiffany took a few minutes to get their new phones set up, then we were on our way over to Springdale and Zion.
When we arrived in Springdale, we drove through town trying to decide where we wanted to stay. Hmmmmmm. We would have liked to have stayed at Flannigan's Villas (which is actually Aunt Elsa's old house beautifully remodelled, plus one more place out behind where the cabin use to be); but last time we checked, it cost $279 a night to stay in the house that was Aunt Elsa's. The place out behind costs even more because it accommodates more people. So we opted to stay at Pioneer Lodge, which is right in the middle of town, and they have a good winter rate--about $70 less than what it costs to stay there in the summer. It has been tastefully refurbished and updated, so it's actually very nice. From our room we had a great view of the Zion peaks and also of the field that has all these big elk and buffalo in it. It was dinnertime, so we went to the Spotted Dog cafe to eat. It's right across from Flannigan's Villas, so we could look out and see Aunt Elsa's house. We were seated by the fire where we could warm up because it was cooooooold down there. For dinner we had tomato basil soup and wood-fired Greek pizza. Very tasty.
The next day, Friday, we went and had breakfast at Oscar's, which is kind of a funny place just off the main street in Springdale. When Steven and I were in Springdale in October we thought about eating at Oscar's, but we stuck with what was familiar to us--Bumbleberry Inn and Pioneer Lodge. Bumbleberry Inn has horrible service, but we kept eating there anyway. We vowed never to eat there again, however. (It wasn't even a choice for Tiff and me anyway, because it was closed for "remodelling." Maybe forever?) Pioneer Lodge is okay for breakfast, but Oscar's turned out to be great. I feel bad Steven and I didn't give it a try. Anyway, Tiff and I had the $2.99 two-egg breakfast, which comes with Oscar's potatoes and either toast or tortillas. We had the tortillas with some fresh salsa, and Tiff added some sausage. It was delicious. So that was a good start to our day.
After breakfast, we went up into the park. It's fun to be at Zion in the winter because you can actually drive into the park and not have to take the shuttle. We were looking forward to going to the park museum, but it was closed for the winter. Darn. So we went to the Visitors' Center and looked around for awhile. We saw Cousin Mark Taylor who had come to Zion with his wife Tiffany's family. That was funny. After the VC, we drove up and went through the tunnel. On the east side of the tunnel was Ranger Valerie, a friend of Tiff's friends Nate and Kate in Natchez. They had told Tiffany to look her up in Zion. So there she was, monitoring the tunnel. It was fun to visit with her for a minute. (We had asked the Ranger at the entrance gate where Valerie might be, and she told us that Valerie was at the tunnel. So we actually knew where to find her.) From there we went back through the tunnel and down again, then we drove up through the canyon. It was a beautiful day, so Tiff got a lot of good pictures. We stopped at the Temple of Sinewava and started walking along the Narrows trail. We walked for awhile until we had to turn back and head back down to Springdale to make our appointment with Della Higley at 1:00.
Della Higley is Alta Halvorsen's aunt. Alta's daughter, Denise Williams, is the one we were able to get a lot of photos and information from earlier this month. Alta's father is Donal Jolley, the first head ranger at Zion, so Alta had a lot of pictures and information about him and other family members which Denise so kindly shared with us. Della is the sister of Donal's wife, Nora, thus making her Alta's aunt. See the connection? She is 94 years old and "the last leaf on the tree," as she described herself. All of her brothers and sisters have died and she is the only one left. Even Alta, her niece, has passed away. But Della had some wonderful photos and information for us. She had had to search through things before finding any pictures she thought we could use. She kept saying, "One of these days I'm going to get organized." (I think that might be me when I'm 94 years old, as well.) While we were there at Della's, a water pipe broke in her front yard, and an Old Faithful-type geyser started shooting into the air. Della didn't even notice it, but Tiff and I sure did, and we called it to her attention. Fortunately, her son-in-law came over and he and Tiff were able to get the water shut off before it started going into the house. Talk about excitement!
After Della's we went to Oscar's again--this time for lunch. Our breakfast waiter had told us about their sweet potato fries; so we thought we better try some (you can't keep a Mississippi girl away from sweet potato fries!). Along with the fries we had a cheese quesadilla, which was yummy and just right. After lunch we wondered if we should call Nellie Ballard again. Tiff had called her earlier and she had said she didn't think she would have anything that would be helpful. She said most of her pictures were J.L. Crawford pictures which Tiffany has a lot of anyway. So Tiffany thought that Nellie would be a dead end. But we decided to call her and give her one more try. I told Tiff to ask her if she had any lodge pictures or anything like that; and come to find out, she said she did and that we were welcome to come to her house in Rockville. So we went over there and she had some good lodge pictures to show us. She even had a picture of the lodge when it burned down. We started visiting with her, and I asked her if she knew Elsa Ruesch. She said Oh yes, she knew Elsa. I told her that Elsa was my husband's aunt; and all of a sudden, she became our new best friend. She started pulling things out right and left, even letting us take all the pictures back to the motel to scan. What a great find! We were surely glad that we had decided to give her one more try. Her father had owned the market in Springdale; so she had a lot of great market pictures, etc., plus information. I think she'll be a good ongoing source for Tiffany if she needs any further help or information to fill in any gaps she might have. So after Nellie's, we went back to the motel to scan, scan, scan. We weren't hungry for dinner because of our late lunch. But we did need something to drink. We tried the vending machine at Pioneer Lodge, but it wasn't working. Unfortunately, we couldn't just run across the street to Zion Market and grab a drink because the market is closed, not just for the season, but FOREVER. We couldn't believe it when we talked to the owner earlier in the day at Zion Park Motel. We asked if the market was just closed for the season, and he said, no, it was closed forever. He seemed quite sad, and so were we. Anyway, we did run across the street and got a drink from the vending machine outside the market. So that got us through the evening.
On Saturday morning, we went back to Oscar's again (our new favorite place) and had granola pancakes for breakfast. Very delicious and very filling! We had to put some in a take-out box. After breakfast, we checked out of the motel and then went to our appointment with Flora Ruesch to look at her pictures. (Steven and I had visited with her last June about Tiff's book and she had shown us lots of pictures and was very friendly and helpful. She even let us take a copy of Walter Ruesch's history. He's her father-in-law and was the first custodian of the park. We took the history to Hurricane to have it copied. In the meantime, she talked to her nieces who were very suspicious of our motives, thus making Flora suspicious. So when we took the history back to her she wasn't so forthcoming. I think she thought we wanted all of her information to turn into a book for ourselves.) So when Tiffany and I went to her house, she brought out a few CCC pictures (which Tiffany needed) and some good ranger pictures. We even thought we saw Grandpa T. in one of the ranger pictures! I asked about some family pictures and she went downstairs and brought up one binder with some family pictures in it. So Tiffany scanned the ones she needed from that. It was kind of funny, because in June she had taken Steven and me down to the room where all the pictures were and she let us look at whatever we wanted. We told her Tiffany would come back in December to scan some of the pictures and she said that would be fine. But that was before she got suspicious. So anyway, I think Tiffany got what she needed from Flora even though it wasn't as much as I had been planning on. We were there scanning for a little over an hour, which was plenty long for Flora, so it worked out all right.
After Flora's, we had a delicious Navajo Taco for lunch at Pioneer Lodge, then we started heading home. We stopped in Rockville to drop Nellie's pictures off to her. She wasn't home, but left a note telling us to just leave them inside the door, which we did. Then we stopped at a funny little bookstore in Virgin, and then went on to the cheese factory in Beaver for ice cream. We had wondered if the weather would be bad beyond Beaver; but it looked good to us, so we decided to keep heading north. We didn't run into any snow until Springville, so we made it home in good shape after a very fun and productive trip!