Alex & I walked down to the Iron Horse restaurant. It had a good outdoor place to eat and drink and keeping with my natural beer garden environment, I felt right at home. I had the Ghost Rider IPA by Wasatch Brewery.
But I was lured off the patio and inside the restaurant by good country music. This guy played all the old songs I liked. Alex tolerated them, but knew none. I bought the guy’s CD. I think I have a CD player, but I made the purchase more out of solidarity than desire to have a CD.
They asked for requests and played two of mine: “Ghost Riders in the Sky” & “El Paso.” They didn’t do my other request: “Where the Mountains Meet the Sky.” Maybe they didn’t know it. Not many people do these days.
Kanab is an interesting little town. It used to be a bigger deal for movie making and there are lots of pictures of old timey actors. I knew most of them by their faces and some even by their names. Alex knew none except John Wayne.
They named the steaks at the Iron Horse, and named one for the Duke. The John Wayne steak is 36 ounce rib eye. If you eat the whole thing, you got to be in the John Wayne club. It seems to me that if you win you lose and if you lose you lose, so better not to play that game at all. Alex had the Joel McCrea steak. Said it was good. I just went with pulled pork.
The ranger laughed when he saw the mud on our car. He knew that the GPS has directed us down the dirt road. It doesn’t usually rain much around here, but it rained this morning and made it muddy. There was a paved road. It was a little longer. We took that one on the way out.
It was an atypical day at Coral Pink Dunes, cool and with drizzling rain. I imagine it must be a different experience with hot sun. I liked the day we got.
The sand moves too much for plant roots to take hold on most of the dunes. They are the classic shifting sands. But Some have vegetation that holds them in place. Where there is enough stability and water, they even get trees. You can see all sorts of dunes on the first picture, moving sand, brush and trees. We had some low clouds that added to the experience, as you see in the second & third pictures. Forth is a hummock. The roots grab the sand on the leeward side and catches more sand. As the roots are buried, they reach farther down and can access water more easily.If it gets stable enough, it can be colonized by gambel oaks. Last picture is Alex trying to look like an explorer.