The Wandering Adventurers: St. George - Left Caterpillars Behind

May 3,4,5
Leaving Zion with all its beauty wasn’t easy but leaving the caterpillars behind took away the angst and we headed for St. George with glee. We were ready for a bit of a “city” stay. St. George has always meant “the best french fries ever” to me since the mid 60’s. Dick and I came through here going north on a camping trip and stopped for a burger and fries at a little burger stand. St. George was a very small town at that time. A couple of years later we came here again this time heading for the east coast. My brother David was with us and we had gone on and on about these fries. Sad as it was we couldn’t find the little stand. Now St. George has grown up and has 50,000 people. The new housing sprawl goes on and on. We did a walking tour of the attractive and vibrant Historic Downtown stopping at the first Mormon Tabernacle that was built in 1863. In 1861, Brigham Young sent 309 families down to start a community here to grow cotton. A year later 200 more families arrived. Everything was here for building with plenty of sandstone, wood, gypsum and lime. Soon homes and the Tabernacle were standing tall. In the group were folks of all trades from stone masons to farmers. It became a known as Utah’s Dixie with 1,000,000 pounds of cotton in the first crop. In its early days, the Mormons began trading produce for silver in the mining town of Silver Reef and developed a relationship with the local Catholic Father. He wanted to conduct High Mass for his Catholic miners and the Mormons offered their Tabernacle as the meeting place. The Mormon choir even learned to sing the High Mass in Latin! Today it is used as a meeting place for the community with other denominations using it for their needs as well.
Movies and popcorn was on our list. We saw “Water for Elephants” and thought it was great. The book was on all of our favorites list. “Soul Surfer” is in today’s plans along with grocery shopping and laundry. Being Cinco de Mayo, we are going out for Mexican food tonight. Next is Bryce Canyon.