Thursday we went to a few more places on our 'short trips' list. There is no official list, its in our heads. But there are a handful of things we have read about or seen pictures of that we want to go see but which are not all day trips on their own. Thursday happened to be a day that we needed to go back to St George. Again. Because Cedar City has no Costco. Or Target. Or lots of things. So it seemed like a good chance to also see a few things that we had a vague idea were near St George.
First was the Glitter Pit. Or Sparkle Mountain. Whichever name you like, it is part of a once abandoned gypsum mine. I say 'once abandoned' because everything we saw online said it was abandoned, but signs at the actual site would indicate that that is not accurate and that it is indeed owned and the owners have all rights to the gypsum located there. It was however empty when we got there with no indication that anyone was actively mining it or taking precautions other than a sign to keep anyone from at least exploring the pit. So we did. The dirt that has been dug up and then piled in hills all around the pit it was removed from really does glitter and sparkle in the sun as it is absolutely full of loose pieces of gypsum. It looks like piles of broken glass. And down in the pit, the red rock wall is broken up by a huge vein of pure white gypsum. Funny that on the wall it looks bright white, but the small pieces when separated from the wall are clear like glass. All this sparkling beauty and it turns out that the main use for gypsum is in dry wall of all things.
After exploring the mine pit for a while we headed off to stop number two, the Warner Valley Dinosaur tracks. The glitter pit is just barely over the Arizona border outside of St George. The dinosaur tracks are near Hurricane Utah. As far as I can tell the only route to those dinosaur tracks though is a long dirt road heading north from pretty much where we were. It started out relatively friendly but became increasingly rough as we went. There were several places where the road is obviously at least occasionally under water. It was a super pretty drive though and we barely saw another soul the whole way. Luckily the dino track site is marked, so we parked and walked out to it. Dinosaur tracks in red rock ground. Exactly as promised. Somehow it is especially cool to see them there on the ground as compared to seeing a piece of rock with a print on it in the museum.
The last visit of the day, if you don't count hamburgers and Costco I guess, was the Brigham Young winter home in St George. Its exactly what it sounds like. A tour of an old house with some church history thrown in. We met missionaries from Texas and Canada and Ireland. And learned that pomegranates can grow in St George, a fact that I am sure has contributed to Kris's desire to live there. They have palm trees, it doesn't snow, they grow pomegranates. Basically it is paradise on Earth.
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