Notom Giles Field Trip on Tuesday

Notom Giles Field Trip on Tuesday

On Sunday evening Annette and Larry's friends Torry and Alisha came to discuss BIFF and other things. We've had a good time with them on previous visits. We ended the fun evening with Smoothies...

One of Alisha's ancestral family names is Durfey, which we will see on our Tuesday Field Trip to Hotom Giles, and more.

Last Friday, I mentioned attending Steve Taylor's class with Larry and Annette on the History of Wayne County. In previous lessons, they had talked about the eastern/southern part of the county, and, as a group had taken a field trip to the locations of some of the earliest settlements in the county, including some of Steve's ancesors (and the Durfey's) among many others. Some of these are now ghost towns, and only cemeteries are left, for example.

Our trip on Tuesday was a mini-field trip, covering some of the ground the group had visited earlier, with Annette and Larry sharing what they had learned. We started from Teasdale along the Teasdale-Grover road, then back to Torry (filled up the gas tank), east on  Highway 24 to east of the Park, up the Notom Road, then cross country to Giles and areas in between. We stopped at the Red Rim Patio Pizza Place to end our tour. Here are a number of photos taken along the way (most are mine, but the one's I'm in were taken by Annette). I'm post additional photos of about 5 of our stops, on future days.

Not far from the house, we saw some pictograhs - Indian paintings of the rock cliffs - three, center, in red:

On the road on up to Grover (another ghost town) we saw a canyon where ancient artifacts were found in the early days,

The canyon can be seen to the left and above Annette's head in this view; you also see the distinctive red/pink mesas of the Capital Reef Waterpocket Fold mountains in the background... we are looking east toward to park, at this point.

Here is the picture of me that she was taking!  ;-) You get to see Nancy's hand, as well! ;-)

Also in the Grover area was the Hall Theater. This family, in recent years, has done summer theater productions in this location:

Somewhere along with way, we noticed the pink flowering cactus. Annette had to have a photo of this year's flower:

One of the resulting photo images she captured:

And you thought it was just dull, dry desert out here.... ;-)

Driving through the park, we noticed the popular Hickman Bridge trail head was closed. Annette and Larry shared with us that some big rocks had fallen on the trail... see huge rock on the trail, center, just above the top rail. Hopefully if will be open, again, later in the summer.

Just beyond the park, we headed south on Notom road... notice the distinctive look of the rock formations of the Waterpocket fold as seen from the east, rather than the view from the west we get from their east deck.

Proceeding south on the Notom Road, you can still see those distinctive ridges in the background west, we stopped at a Notom Commemorative sign.

A closer look at the sign... with the Durfey name prominent. They apparently sponsored the sign.

 I'll do a separate post with more photos in this area, and of the sign, and surroundings.

Proceeding further, we found the Notom Cemetery. I'll also do a separate post of that. Here is a sample.

Note, for now, the wire fence surrounding, the wooden fence inside, and, the same rock formations in the background.

From here we proceeded toward the Giles settlement area. As we appoached, crossing the high plains, above the Fremont River, below, we came upon the one small grave; Annette is looking at the flat stone, that has been placed... it simply says, "Unknown."

The story that goes with it is that a party of settlers were headed for Giles, had a small child die, and buried it here. They were only a few miles from the Giles settlement, but it is unknown whether they didn't realize it was so close, or, it was just to hot and desolate to carry the body on... so sad. But, so typical of the hard times in the area, at the time.

On the near side of the river, ahead to the right, an entrepreneur attempted more recently to entice visitors and investors to the Giles-Blue Valley area.

Up on the ridge to the far right of here, he has another sign.

I'll do another post with more "Exciting Offers" for land investors here... and other Giles sights.

Driving off down the 'road' behind Annette in the photo above, we came to this Memorial for the Giles Cemetery

It lists all those buried in the cemetery, across that Gulch, ahead, and in the distance - which can be seen in the background, below. We did not attempt to cross the gulch to the actual cemetery.

On the return trip, once we returned to Scenic Highway 24, and headed back toward the park, we passed the Mesa Market. Larry and Annette know the proprietor, Randy, and they regularly get vegetables, and cheese from him. Amazing what being closer to the river and irrigation can do.

They also sometimes get bread he baked in that outdoor oven just the the left of the building (and the truck). Here is the end of a loaf, from there:

It had a very distinctive taste. Yummy!  ;-) [Larry and I traded on eating leftovers... I got this one!]

And, as you know if you have followed us on Facebook, we stopped at the Rim Rock Patio for Pizza on the way back home:

I'll also share more of the view we had here, and the upgrades they've added recently, in another post.

It was a very good day!  ;-)