Utah's Dixie

Terrific. I loved the rooms, very quiet, and well appointed. I enjoyed two nights in a suite - very luxurious, especially the deep Jacuzzi tub! Make sure you stop in and get the complimentary breakfast - actual breakfast! - in the morning.

Thanks to the Abbey Inn staff for managing such a fine hostelry...

Nicely done steakhouse on the northwest end of St. George. The elk chop was spectacular and the side dishes well prepared and tasty. Although game is the speciality, the mesquite-flavor of the chop suggests that their steaks will be delicious. The local Wasatch on draft is chewy and refreshing. A pleasant stop after a hard day's work.

Be advised that for a franchise steakhouse the Gunbarrel is quite expensive - I'm not sure if I'd have stopped here if I we not on an expense account. And even on a slow weekday evening there was nothing in the dining room - reservations are recommended.

Lovely little state park west of town. A central autoroute takes you to numerous trails that wind through red and whiterock Navajo Sandstone. The landscape is typical "dixie" - magnificent, very peaceful, and with spectacular views of the desert around you. A worthwhile reminder that not all of southern Utah is golf course or strip mall and well worth the short drive from St. George.

For the less adventurous, a paved path winds through the main canyon; it's also ideal for bikers who neglected their knobbies. During my visit the path hosted a dozen or so rolling tourists on the Segways - a sight as silly as anything on cable television and well worth the price of admission.

For those without the time to visit any of the larger natural areas to the east, Snow Canyon makes a great introduction to the southern Utah/Mojave landscape.

The Red Cliffs Desert Reserve is easily accessible from any of the roads leading north of St. George, including several places along State Hwy 18.

As a day hike it is subtlety affecting, not a spectacular eye-filler like Zion or even Snow Canyon to the west, but instead a natural landscape for the working day, nicely showcasing the terrain and the dwellers of the north end of the Mojave biozone.

In the desert silence you can still hear the red-tailed hawk and watch the ravens wheel in black silence over the mesquite and juniper. Feel the heat rising from the red sand trail, and the cool of the black basalt along the rimrock. Pause and contemplate the ancient stone of the Pine Valley Mountains looming above you. If you're lucky you will come across a desert tortoise, going slowly about its tortoise business as they have for thousands of years.

If you have the time, the Red Cliffs reserve will reward you, not with the "big" photo ops of the Zion/Escalante sort, but of the more human scale of a nature that met the first dwellers of this land...