Doc and I had planned a camping trip to Great Basin National Park with my friend who lives in St. George*, but then a cold front came through and we realized the high at the park was going to be 56 degrees–so we punted and went to stay with her instead.

She works at a resort there so we spent most of Saturday by the pool and getting spa treatments, then walked a labyrinth (!) and had dinner we did not have to cook over a campfire. Sunday morning we saw some petroglyphs, had a civilized brunch, and then drove home, not smelling like wood smoke.

I can get used to this kind of “camping.”

Yuccas in bloom in Snow Canyon

A woman with a drink lying by the pool

A labyrinth made of red rocks

Ancestral Puebloan petroglyphs

Red Mountain at sunset

 

*This was my first time doing anything more than passing through St. George–we usually go to Moab in the eastern corner of the state instead of heading west.

I surprised myself by really loving it: the desert was in bloom from the wet spring we had, there were exotic plantings of mimosas and palms and oleanders all through town, and I fell in love with a retirement community that was built to blend in with the landscape.