Saturday, May 1, 2010

Finding St. George, Utah

Here’s another pause on our journey to the north.   After our national park visit the other day, we traveled about 50 miles west, to St. George, Utah.  We had shopping and laundry and we were curious about this city, so we are now adding it to our visited list.  The Elks Lodge here has proven to be a very nice location.  It sits up on a bluff with the red cliffs backing up the rv spots. The red rock, mountains and golf course views from our home are easy to get used to.  Ferd and neighbor at St. George Elks Lodge

It seems that this city’s surrounded by photo ops.  Wikipedia describes it so well: ….”St. George's trademark is its geology — red bluffs make up the northern part of the city with two peaks covered in lava rock in the city's center. The northeastern edges of the Mojave Desert are visible to the south. Zion National Park can be seen to the east, and the Pine Valley St. George, UtahMountains loom over the city to the north and northwest.”  With the views and the mild winters, one can see why the city is a popular retirement community.   Looking into these red rocks, I’ve also learned that St. George is built directly upon Jurassic, Triassic, and Permian period sedimentary bedrock.  And that the movie Jurassic Park was filmed here.  

This turns out to be convenient surroundings for us for a couple of reasons, both fun and interesting.  One of the objectives on this stop was to possibly choose a new camera.  The Nikon Coolpix has been a loyal friend for over six years.  But it’s time to update.  Especially for the wildlife and scenery we’ll be experiencing on the Destination Alaska 2010 trip - starting soon. I wanted to improve the zoom,  the wide angle and shutter speed and was hoping for image stabilization. But at the same time, realistically, we knew we wouldn’t carry a cumbersome machine around with us.  In other words, avoid big and complicated.  Long story short, we found it.  The Hurleys now own a Canon Power Shot SX210.  They seem to be very popular, even with the sales people who praised the camera and wished they personally had one, while apologizing that they couldn’t keep them in stock.  So we searched until we found one available at a local camera shop.  It has everything we need, but is still small enough to be a pocket camera. And since she’ll be spending a lot of time with us, we needed the appropriate name.  Enter …..Goldie.  ( You can see why her name’s appropriate in a photo below.)

St. George, UT, red rocks#1. St. George city park with wide angle. See the people on top – the tiny specks.  See photo #2. Canon Power Shot SX210 14x optical zoom #2. These are the same folks as in #1 – using the zoom. (No doctoring here.)
Our golf course view at the Elks lodge "Goldie"

The last couple of days we’ve been using St. George’s scenic southwest surroundings to become familiar with Goldie, trying out each feature and getting used to functions.  There are a few examples in this post.  Just getting started on practicing for bears, moose and glaciers. 

That covers one reason this was a good stop.  The second reason took us by surprise.  Pulling through town we noticed the major streets displayed signs concerning an event on Saturday, May 1.  Planning to move on by then, we dismissed that for a while.  We found the Elks and got settled.  But then we heard more about the major road closings on Saturday as we explored. What is this really? Where have we been?  Certainly not getting the news about the “Ford Ironman St. George.”  It’s huge: 2200 athletes, 30 countries. Now we know and we’re staying. Ironman We’re avoiding some bad weather for a few days. Besides, “Why not see an Ironman event when it’s right in front of your nose!”  This sounds exciting.  Roads are being closed. Setup is underway. Stay tuned.St. George - Ole Yeller

1 comment:

  1. Hi Friends:
    That was a great post. I am very impressed with the zoom effect of the camara. Was that done with image stablization and not with a tripod?? We are waiting for your reports on your Alaska trip.
    Chuck and Jan

    ReplyDelete

Hi: Thanks for your thoughts.