Santa Clara River, Utah

It is snowing today, but yesterday was supposed to be warm and sunny. I'd never been down through the southwestern corner of Utah from Pine Valley to Beaver Dam Wash on old Highway 91. It looked like a good day to try it. I left pretty early and drove to Pinto, but the road from there to Pine Valley was washed out. I had to turn around. The road from Pinto to Mountain Meadow was washed out, too, but the Chev was up to the task. When I got to Central, I drove to Pine Valley on the pavement. On the way back, I tried to turn off the highway at Veyo to follow the Santa Clara River to Gunlock and beyond. Unfortunately, the road was closed. OK. So, I took the highway all the way to Ivins and tried to go up through the reservation at Shivwits. The road was closed there, too. At this point, I began to learn a couple of things:

First, I stopped along the Santa Clara River in the vicinity of Ivins and realized that it had recently experienced a 15 foot flood. I mean, like in the past few days. There were full-sized cottonwood trees uprooted and resting on new sandbars about 10 feet above the current water level. With all the roads from Pinto washed out . . . and now this . . . I began to put two and two together. We'd had some rain while we were in Bluff, but it seems as though this corner of the state had experienced a steady pounding. Every wash from Newcastle to Mesquite had flooded and removed any road in its path. The road in the Santa Clara canyon wasn't just "closed," it was washed out.

Second, as I wandered through the area I discovered that I was that I was no longer in rural southern Utah, but was instead on the fringes of the St. George urban sprawl. It was awful. From Central to Veyo to Ivins to Santa Clara; from La Verkin to Hurricane to Washington; from Leeds to the Arizona border. What a mess. Pink stucco mcmansions, fast food, and furniture. And the driving. Is that what suburbanites do all day? They drive like maniacs from the light in front of Carl's Junior, to the light in front of the Maverick? Two speeds, "on" and "off," get there as fast as you can so you can slam on your brakes? OK. I'm sure it is like that everywhere, but I'm just sheltered.

At one point in all that silliness, a white sporty thing zoomed up beside me and honked. I looked over and expected someone to curse at me because I was exceeding the speed limit by only 15 mph rather than 45. Instead, a beautiful woman was waving at me. I thought maybe I'd left my turn signal on or something so I checked all my lights. I looked back. She was still there, but now she was smiling and trying to say something. Oh. Well. Maybe she wants to pick me up. She looks a bit chic, but sometimes these wealthy ladies like someone with three days growth and a mud spattered Chevy. I rolled down the window and said, "Hey, what's going on?" The woman's face fell and the smile disappeared. "Oh," she said, "I thought you were someone else." She floored her Acura and vanished around the next couple of curves. Nice to know that I've still got the ability to charm a beautiful stranger.