Zion National Park

One of the first really cool places that I got to see when I was out west a few weeks ago was Zion National Park. My gracious hosts, Eric and Lu, were kind enough to cart me up there for a day.

Zion, for those of you who've never been, is a canyon surrounded by steep sandstone cliffs that just can't help but be awesome.

This one is known as "The Sentinel".

They've got cactus, too. Me being from back east, I was fascinated and immediately got stuck by this one because I just had to touch it and see if they were really sharp. (It was.) And this one is flowering. Isn't that special?

These three comprise "The Court of the Patriarchs", and they're named for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob respectively left to right. And yeah, it was the Mormons who came through and named most of this stuff. Utah, remember?

Even the parking lots have fantastic views in Zion.

And here's the Virgin River that runs down the middle of the canyon. The water is so clear that it looks like it's not even there.

The scrub pine at the base of the cliff give some idea as to the scale of the cliffs. Those are full-sized pine trees there.

"Hey look--a lizard!" Eric and Lu got a chuckle out of my excitement at seeing one, but it's not like we have these things running around West Virginia.

One of the shots I took when we were hiking the trails.

Here's another lizard. Cool, eh?

More cliffs and cactus. It was a hot day, but no humidity so it was kinda neat.

One of the trails that wound around the cliffs.

That Virgin River again.

Some of the trees down at Angels Landing. We had this sopt to ourselves because no one else seemed to want to get off the crowded buses here and hike down to the river.

The water was so inviting that I just had to follow Lu's example and wade in to cool my feet foot.

Temple of sinawava. This is as far as the buses take you. You can walk up a trail another mile from the bus stop to get to here, and if you're adventurous and properly equipped, you can head further up the river to some serious trails that we sadly had neither the time nor the gear for.

They got deer here, too.

At least two deer.

We only spent a day there but it was a fantastic day and I'd reccomend it to anyone who finds themselves in the area as the hiking is easy and the scenery is spectacular.

The Utah desert

I'm interrupting the Pima pics for a bit of other travel.

One of the cool things was a day spent out in the Utah BLM lands with Eric of The Warrior Class and Angus, his trusty sidekick.

We loaded up one morning before it got too hot and drove off into the high desert.


The first thing that they took me to see what this spot where dinosaur tracks were still evident in the rocks some millions of years after they'd passed.

There's a sign there, but nothing else. No fence to keep anyone out save a small cattle fence because it is open range land.

What I really like is that you can have stuff like this out there with no fences and no security and no one messes with it. Try it back east, or in California, or anywhere else that the liberal left holds sway, and this stuff would have been vandalized out of existence years ago. But Utah and much of the rural west still seems to reflect the values that made Yesterday's America great.

Here's Angus, checking things out.

And Eric and Angus. I gotta admit, Angus is better trained than my two dogs...at least better than Murphy. Eric's done well with him.

Leaving there and driving on, we went to this old fort, originally built by the Mormon Militia to protect their territory from the U.S. Cavalry Indians.

As you can see, it's on a rise overlooking the only real pass through the low mountains to the west and it covers the only wash that might hold water even part of the year. It's in a great spot strategically, and it would have been hard to bypass.

It was known as Fort Pierce, and like the dinosaur tracks, it's been unmolested for over a century despite being unguarded and open to everyone.

Well it was almost unmolested. I did find and point out a spot where someone named Frank Cannon had etched his name into one of the stones, causing Eric to about blow his stack before we looked closer and saw the date when it was done: 1900.

As Eric pointed out, there weren't any roads leading to this place in 1900. There weren't even any cars, the first ones would not even be invented way back east for a few years yet. This was obviously the work of some cowboy or saddle tramp, who was a long ways from any settlement when he came along and did this. Utah had only gained statehood four years prior and this area was even more remote then than it is today, and that's saying a lot. Here's the view behind it.

The Utah high desert is a harsh but beautiful place. Here's a video pan I shot, showing the terrain in detail. Those of you who live or have visited places like this might find it boring, but as a first-time visitor, I was fascinated.

I could see myself moving out somewhere like this in a few years. And when the wheels fall off what's left of our society in the not-too-distant future, it'll be a great safe haven to watch and mourn from.

Ronnie Gardner's going out with a bang tonight.

FIVE bangs, to be exact.

SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah is set to execute a condemned killer by firing squad shortly after midnight Thursday, reviving an old West style of justice that hasn't been used for at least 14 years and that many criticize as archaic.

Barring the success of any final appeals, Ronnie Lee Gardner will be strapped into a chair, have a target pinned over his heart and die in a hail of bullets from five anonymous marksmen armed with .30-caliber rifles and firing from behind a ported wall.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver denied Gardner's petition for a stay Thursday, saying allegations of a conflict of interest by the Utah attorney general's office were without merit. An appeal is still pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, and Gardner also has asked Gov. Gary Herbert for a temporary stay.

Gardner will be the third man killed by firing squad in the U.S. since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling reinstated capital punishment in 1976. Although Utah altered its capital punishment law in 2004 to make lethal injection the default method, nine inmates convicted before that date, including Gardner, can still choose the firing squad instead.

Gardner, 49, was sentenced to death for a 1985 capital murder conviction stemming from the fatal courthouse shooting of attorney Michael Burdell during an escape attempt. Gardner was at the court because he faced a 1984 murder charge in the shooting death of bartender Melvyn Otterstrom.

Tami Stewart's father, George "Nick" Kirk, was a bailiff who was shot and wounded in Gardner's botched escape. Kirk suffered chronic health problems until his death in 1995 and became frustrated by the lack of justice Gardner's years of appeals afforded him, Stewart said.

She said she's not happy about the idea of Gardner's death but believes it will bring her family some closure.

"I think at that moment, he will feel that fear that his victims felt," Stewart said.

That works for me. See ya, dirtbag.