For breakfast, Wayne replaced the box of day old donuts he’d given us with a box of Danishes, everything else was left over from who knows how many nights. Still, the Orange Juice was cool, and I got to drink as much as I wanted. Besides, the Danishes and bananas filled me to the point where I only needed to order one breakfast when Sharon and I went out (Deciding that Wayne’s spread was enough, Lindy didn’t join us.) and I didn’t even finish Sharon’s hash browns!
I packed and watched Ocean’s 12 on TV, the first TV we’d seen since Springdale, while Sharon and Lindy went to the Post Office. We were on the road soon after they got back. We were hitching for almost two hours. We were just about to give up and buy a ride, when a small Ford pulled over.
“Where’re you heading?”
“Kitchen Corral Road”
“Where is that?”
“Not sure, 25 to 30 miles down the highway.”
“Well, let’s go.”
Stern was on his way home to Lake Powell after visiting his brother in St. George. He had an elaborate story about building a resort hotel for Georgio Armani inside Canyon Lands National Park that I only half believed, wondering: Would the National Park system allow a casino in the park? Would Armani pick Stern in his ol’ beat up Ford to be his contractor? And since when did Utah legalize casino level gambling? Outlandish!
While we were obviously grateful for the ride and amusing conversation, I was a bit relieved when we saw our stop, and I could soon rejoin peace and quiet.
The terrain got steadily more attractive as we followed the dirt road up a series of washes. Toward the middle of our travel day, we came upon Chuck’s cabin. Chuck is an old friend of the Johnson Family who stays in one of their ranch cabins in exchange for some help he gave them back in the ‘50’s. He was home, along with a large number of bellowing cows and a number of the Johnson clan, including Carl the current para familias.
We chatted with them for a while. Apparently the cows were upset because their calves had just been sold off to feed lots. If my calf had been sold off to a feedlot, where it was doomed to stand in its own shit in a corral with thousands of other cows while being forced to eat unhealthy food, antibiotics, and steroids, I’d be unhappy too. Even though these cows didn’t know the precise fate of their offspring their grief was justified.
We camped under the first three pines we’d seen all day, between two towering white cliff mesas. The sagebrush here is otherworldly, some of the plants have to be 8-10ft tall.
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