in Mormon Country

Friday 8/24

First thing this morning, I felt the clarion call of those scones and presented myself at the shop at about 8:05 to consider the vast selection and make my choice.  I finally settled on a peach scone and ate half of it in celebration (but hopefully not a sabotage) of weighing my lowest in about 20 years this am.  Between the two of us, Nils and I have lost 55 pounds in the last 1 1/2 years. We are both extremely proud of ourselves.

Then, properly fueled, we walked the Cohab Canyon Trail and back, then walked to the Hickman Bridge (a natural stone arch).  Breathtaking!  The pictures just don't come close to conveying how beautiful it is, but here they are anyway.  Because we were such early birds, it was cool and breezy AND we had it pretty much to ourselves, which is (as you've gathered) the way we like it.  I realized, from my Mormon reading that "Cohab" is short for "cohabitation", i.e. polygamy.  Really (this is Lisa the Anthropology major speaking here), it should really be referred to as polygyny, because in the land of Mormons we're always talking about one man with a multitude of women.  Just in case you were wondering. 

Nils in a section carved out by water, long ago

It's really spectacular

There were all these cool slot canyons along the way---a rock climber's delight.  It was so beautiful, it really resembled an enormous art studio---full of color and texture and discarded attempts and flowing design.  Just spectacular.  By the time we got to Hickman Bridge, it was close to noon and quite hot.

Nils's great photo of the Hickman Bridge

Before arriving back at the RV for some well-deserved sluicing off, we stopped at one of the open orchards and picked peaches and ate right off of the tree.  They were SO delicious!  You're encouraged to eat as much as you want for free...any fruit you carry out with you costs the princely sum of $1 per pound, all on the honor system.  We brought back a pound in my hat, and about 3 pounds in our stomachs, collectively! 

After our showers and a little rest, we rode our bikes to a different orchard which had pears.  But they were nowhere as good as the peas, so after trying one, we got right back on our bikes and rode to the juicy peaches.  If I were close to home, I'd be baking peach crumble right now.  It reminded me of making peach jam with my mom and coating the whole kitchen in a film of stickiness.  Delicious on homemade bread.

This place is so beautiful that we're staying another night--time for another hike in the morning!