The Search for Toquerville Falls

The closing of the roads past the gravel pit threw a few big boulders into my plans to find the back road to Toquerville Falls. Yesterday, Terry brought us out to his little overlook off Highway 9, and Reinee and I hiked across country toward the road I had seen from the gravel pit area. It was interesting to see Grotto Cove from above.

Several wildflowers attracted our attention - the reds of blooming paintbrush and mammilaria, and the gentle pinks of Mojave paintbrush. I slipped on some loose rock and my hand came down on a mammilaria. Pulling out the spines was no fun. It drew blood!

In the distance, I could see the gravel road which I thought might take us to Toquerville Falls. Unfortunately, there's no way to get to it without going down into the area near the gravel pit. Using any other route, the final descents are dangerously steep, almost vertical. We'd have to go back out Highway 9 and up past the guard rail section to find a way across. But I could see another way in, from Highway 17, and Terry was willing to explore it, so we went back out and gave it a try. After navigating a half-completed housing development (Those fireplugs looked so lonely!) we wound our way along a steep and narrow gravel road that our little 2-wheel drive pickup could just barely navigate. We were finally able to turn around near the Toquerville water tank. The ride down was scary. Loose gravel created poor traction and there were steep drop-offs on both sides. But we did see a side road that led off to the north, toward Toquerville Falls.

Today Terry took us out and dropped us off at the beginning of that road. It was quite windy, with rain threatening. When it was almost time to turn around, we took a steep road to the right, which led us around by the water tank and back to the car. Reinee insisted on sniffing around near the almost vertical drop-offs. I had to call her back several times. The wind was very strong. Luckily it was blowing away from the steep drops. When we rounded one curve, I could lean into the wind and feel it supporting me. It reminded me of walking over the Nuuanu Pali in Hawaii. Reinee wasn't crazy about the wind, but we pushed forward. The wind was getting into my ears, and I can imagine, with her huge ears, that it was much worse for her.

Tea Party Express III

We went into St. George this afternoon to see what the Tea Party people were up to. Quite a crowd -- we had to park several blocks away.

I was disappointed. It's supposed to be a movement to limit government interference in our lives, but all I heard was more of this religious stuff and a singer on stage going on about marriage being between a man and a woman, and more of the same. Not my cup of tea at all. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I have no problem with people who are religious being involved, or people who dislike the idea of gay marriage, as long as they don't co-opt the movement. It's supposed to be about limiting government power, about keeping the government under control, not about giving the government additional grounds to interfere in the purview of the states and the lives of the citizens.

Looks like another good idea going off the rails.

cybersmooth

Wow! It took a lot of doing -- mostly because I'm not used to this sort of thing -- but my computer is now running smoothly again. Wow!

cure multiplies woes

Yesterday I bought and installed "Exterminate It" and "Registry Reviver" plus a driver fixer. I ran the first two -- found a hijacker and repaired a hotkey, and fixed over 600 registry errors. My computer ran better for half an hour and then the troubles returned. Ran Exterminate It and found nothing. Ran Registry Reviver and found 63 errors, all file path problems and empty hot keys. Computer ran better for a little while, but then crashed. I was having difficulty shutting down so I did the "Switch User" test and when I used the little red button was told another user might lose data if I shut down. There still should be no other user. This was repeated several tmes till I finally gave up. File path errors had disappeared and empty hot keys dropped to 46.
I sent a report of the computer's state to the folks who own Exterminate It. We'll see what happens next.

no more gravel pit :(

Reinee was straining at the leash and I was straining to see field marks on some cute little blue-backed birds (glasses left at home), so I didn't notice the barrier until we were right on top of it. Several old culverts and some dirt and large rocks were piled across the road, blocking our way at the end of Main Street, keeping us from the dirt road that leads down past the gravel works. This was accompanied by a huge sign that says "NO TRESPASSING".

I was in shock for a while. Then, hoping that the barrier was meant for trucks and such, I released Reinee and we walked along the edge of the high ground to a place where I knew people enter the area on foot. There I met another pile of dirt blocking the road and supporting an old plank which bore two smaller signs: "Keep Out" and "No Trespassing". I leashed Reinee up and we trudged home along the narrow verge, dodging the traffic on Highway 17.

No more place for young people to climb and run, no more place for people to ride their horses and run their dogs, no more place for trucks and ORV's to scramble up a variety of steep hills and humps. And no more time for me to take photographs. I had thought I would have forever to take shots of the interesting scenes that met my eyes at the gravel pit. I had a dozen or more vantage points picked out from which to take these shots. I was waiting for warmer weather, when we'd be taking our walks in the early morning, long shadows adding to the view. One lovely hollow would have made an interesting time-lapse study, with a series of stitched panoramics journaling its spring greening. I had just taken the first of those groups of pictures.

I saw in the police notices in The Spectrum a few days ago that there was a theft at the gravel pit. I wondered if someone had gotten into the office trailer and stolen the petty cash. I'm beginning to think it was a lot more serious than that.

Aaarargh again!

Windows updates continue, with some failures -- still haven't managed to install Vista Service Pack 2.

Aaaaah ...

M y laptop is working beautifully this morning. Aaaaah ...