USA 2019: Kanab to Las Vegas - The end.

Our last full day as tourists as we wind our way back to our hotel in Las Vegas ready for our flight out tomorrow. Our overnighter in Kanab was good. Kanab itself is, as for so many towns around these parts, not a place to write home about. It's just north of the Arizona state line and the area was first settled in 1864. The town, itself, was founded in 1870 when ten Latter-Day Saint  (Mormon) families moved in as homesteaders. Since then, its major claim to fame seems to be as a lcoation for many familiar Western films. So much so, that it is known, by some (probably self-proclaimed) as 'Little Holywood'. All over the town there are information panels telling you about the films and TV series that had been shot hereabouts. To some extent, the names were a roll-call of my '50s and '60s (the decades, not my years). Kanab is also a good base from which to visit Zion and Bryce and that accounts for the number of hotels and motels which are disproportionate to its size.

Kanab on a Sunday is not an exciting place so we decided to call in on the Pipe Spring National Monument on our way passed. We were glad that we did as it was a really interesting place, with one of the best introductory/orientation films that we've seen since we've been over here. It also had a very well curated museum on the lives and beliefs of the Paiutes, who have called this place home for some 700 years. It's another example of a gem that is below the radar of most visitors to the area.

After that, it was down the Interstate to Las Vegas and the La Quinta Suites at the airport.Driving in Las Vegas was such fun. I just can't wait to do it again - not.

No, we didn't breakfast on a joint at the AirBnB in Kanab but we did have a cheese bagel around the corner in a neighbourhood cafe. A fellow customer asked me to take Trump back to the UK with me. I said I'd give him Brexit in exchange. We agreed that it was a draw. For the record, Cannabis in Utah is illegal for recreational use, with possession of small amounts punishable as a misdemeanor crime. Similarly in Arizona. But in Nevada you can buy weed for recreational use from authorised stores only. Not sure we'll ever see it on sale in the Post Office Stores in Stoke Climsland.

A rubbish photograph of Winsor Castle at Pipe Spring. It was raining and I didn't want to get my camera wet!  Pipe Spring was important because it was a reliable source of water. As such it had been used by various tribes for millenia, starting with the Pre-Puebloans and then the Paiutes. Unfortuantely for the latter, the Mormons discovered Pipe Spring in 1858 and this lead to a more formal 'take-over' in 1863 by James Whitmore, who was subsequently killed by the Navajo over some cattle. By 1868 a small stone cabin was built by way of defence and this was expanded to a fortified ranch-house in 1870. It was nicknamed Winsor Castle after the first occupant, Anson Perry Winsor. The ranch offered good grazing for cattle and Pipe Spring, owned and run by the Mormon church, was officially known as the Southern Utah Tithing Office, whereby profits and produce from the ranched were 'tithed' to the church and helped, in a very material way, to the building of a Mormon temple in nearby St George.

The first room of the ranch which functioned as a dairy. In this large vat, enormous quantities of cheese were made - the cheese press is in the background - which was despatched to St George. The spring of Pipe Spring was culverted and diverted so that it flowed in a atrough at the back of this room. Thence it went into two ponds dug as retaining pools. Thus the Mormon's control of the water was absolute and this was the root of protracted problems with the Paiutes for many years.

This shot reminds me of the atmosphere of some of the Dutch Masters. Just call me Rembrandt Parsons. Hardly. Who am I trying to kid? Anyway who needs all that sticky and smelly paint when you can do it with a digital camera?

Winssor Castle was simple in form, two sand-stone block buildings, facing a courtyard enclosed by solid wooden gates. Although built as a defensive structure, it was never used as such but it did become a very important waystation for travellers traversing the Arizona Strip, inhospitable and difficult to navigate at the best to times.

The story goes that one of the matriarchs of Winsor Castle said to her husband "Look, I'm fed up with cooking for so many on an open fire. Get me a decent stove or I'm off". Enter this stove via the Sears Catalogue. It's original from circa 1900 and reminds me of one my grandmother had. Not exactly the same but similar. Because of its strategic location, there were always many visiting travellers and I can understand the demand for better catering facilities.

Winsor Castle was an important staging post and because of this it was the first telegraph office in the Arizona territory (the State didn't exist then) on the Deseret Telegraph Line.

This is the telegraph 'office'. The first operator was 16 year old Eliza Luella Stewart, an example of the young being the early adaptors of technology?

Is this a Mormon khazi?

These are pure bred Long Horn Cattle. These are not as domesticated as our cows back home. These horns are very long and sharp. There is a ssign that says not to come within 5 foot of them. This sign should be obeyed. I ignored it and was almost impaled as I took this photograph. I'm old enough to know better but I don't. Imagine having to explain my wounds to the travel insurance company. Gored whilst ignoring an obvious sign! Rock and roll!

This is the only place where we've seen bush cactii such as this. There are lots of flowers yet to bloom and when they do, it's going to be a great big prickly bundle of yellow.

These fledgling Black Phoebes were making quite a racket as they awaited food from their parents. I think there were three in the nest

The young were on the cusp of leaving the nest and were making some short, exploratory flights to this handrail. A few minutes there chirping and looking around and then back to the safety of their nest.

And the Paiutes in all of this? Treated abysmally on all fronts. Harassed by the Navajo and Utes, infected by the Spanish and dispossessed and marginalised by the Mormons. Their numbers have ebbed and flowed over the years and it was not until the declaration of Pipe Springs as a National Monument that they really got some formal recognition, some of their own land back and a 1/3 access to the water of Pipe Spring. They are gradually recovering from all of that but, as with other tribes, they now face the problems of adapting their customs to the modern world. How will it end? Time will tell but it is a great shame that we, the most profligate users of the earth's resources, do not adopt some of their core beliefs.

On our way back we diverted to drive, albeit briefly, around a place called Colorado City. This and the contiguous settlement of Hildale (collectively known as Spring Creek) are notorious for their associations withThe Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS Church) is one of the largest of the fundamentalist Mormon denominations and one of the largest organizations in the United States whose members practice polygamy. They were founded in the early 1950s by FLDS elders who wanted to escape the attentions of the central LDS church in Salt Lake City. They thought that the Arizona Strip was remote enough to protect them. And so it did for many years until one of their more despotic leaders, Warren Jeffs, took over and introduced some extreme isolationist and exclusive policies. He was arrested and imprisoned in the late 1990s on charges of child abuse. Since then the communities of Hildale and Colorado City have gone through turmoil but seem to emerging from it now. There are still lots of issues on land ownership that are unresolved and our drive around Colorado City showed many unfinished houses and roads. It really was a dismal place, probably the worst we've been through over here. It's always good to end a holiday on an upbeat note, eh?