Order Up!

In addition to the conference in St. George, I'm also down South this weekend for a GPS traning at Valley High School in Orderville. Where's Orderville you're asking yourself? It's about 15 miles east of Zion National Park. It's acutally a pretty cool drive from New Harmony, as you'll go through several small local towns to get to Zion. One of my favorite local towns in Southern Utah has to be LaVerkin. Where else can you find a town with such an unique personality? A few years ago LaVerkin wanted the US out of the United Nations, with part of their complaints concerning the right to bare arms. It's apparent that some members of town don't agree with the city council...

After reading about the business district of LaVerkin, we continued on into the park. Fortunately, we didn't have to pay the entrance fee (now $25 for 5 days) since we were simply passing through the park. In fact, you almost have to travel across the park in order to reach the towns on the other side. The best part about driving to the east side of the park is the tunnel. A 1.1 mile turnnel cut right into the rock so you cross to the other side. Very cool, and a bit surreal to pass through about 5 minutes of darkness in the middle of so much beauty.

We arrived in Orderville and conducted our little GPS training for about 12 teachers. It was a lot of fun to explore the grounds surrounding the school and see a school that reminded us of a simpler time. My dad commented that it brought him back to his high school, with a graduating class of 40. A school where "everyone knew everyone else." In fact, you could see the remnants of the previous graduating classes, as the school tradition is to paint your class year of the rock landscape behind the school. I'm sure the Sierra Club isn't too fond of the scenery, but it was pretty cool to see the art work dating back to the 40's. It was a fun day and a great chance to get out and see different parts of Utah.