S.Calif Trip Day 4- Cedar City, UT to Parowan Gap, UT

Cedar City, Utah - Spent another night at The Bard’s Inn in Cedar City, Utah. Woke at 7 AM MT and started getting ready to leave but then decided Carol and I would spend another night at The Bard’s Inn.

We all went to breakfast at 8:30 AM MT and I verified our room was still available that night. After breakfast, we treated Lotte to coffee at the Bristlecone Café before she left to go back to Grand Junction, Colorado to visit other friends.

After saying good bye to Lotte, we drove to Parowan Gap to check out the petroglyphs and dinosaur tracks. The petroglyphs were awesome and, IMO rivaled the petroglyphs I'd seen at Newspaper Rock State Historic Monument. According to the information signs at Parowan Gap, the petroglyphs were the works of people from the prehistoric Fremont and Southern Paiute cultures thousands of years ago. 

The petroglyphs were their written language and were based on Indian sign language that was universal among all tribes throughout North America. The petroglyphs also helped them record astronomical knowledge and researchers believe the Indians who came to this site found Parowan Gap’s geological features offered a means to chart seasonal and celestial movements. 

After viewing the petroglyphs, we drove a few miles up the road to where the dinosaur tracks were located.

According to the information signs, the tracks were created by Hadrosaurs who were one of the most plentiful dinosaur species in North America 65 to 75 million years ago. Hadrosaurs were “duck billed” plant eaters who weighed a few tons and were 10 – 40 foot long.

The footprints were left when they walked through mud which was eventually filled with pebbles and sand and over time, was covered and hardened into rock. Over millions of years, erosion eventually brought the rocks and footprints to the surface where they’re visible today. We walked around the site looking for footprints and eventually found several that had small, metal footprint symbols next to them. The actual footprints were not obvious and if they weren’t marked, I’m not sure I would have seen them. Sadly, someone actually broke off a piece of one of the footprints making it even harder to recognize.

We continued our road trip to the town of Parowan which is a small, quaint town of about 3,100 people and used to be the Iron County seat. We drove by the Old Rock Church that was built in 1867 out of yellow sandstone from nearby canyons. We then stopped at a local drive thru and got root beer floats before heading back to Cedar City where we finished the previous night’s left-over pizza and then walked over to the nearby Southern Utah University where we checked out the new Shakespeare theater and Shakespeare character sculpture garden. 

Shakespeare sculpture at SUU

Hamlet sculpture at SUU

Flash Back to July 1995 - While on our way home from a road trip to Canyonlands National Park, our 1989 Isuzu Trooper blew a head gasket about 40 miles north of Cedar City, Utah. We were in the middle of nowhere but thankfully, we were on Interstate 15 where, hopefully, we would be more likely to get help (there were no cell phones back then). We waited for a long time and finally saw a highway patrol car approaching and thought all was good. But, unbelievably, he drove by without stopping. We watched him drive away thinking evil thoughts but then saw him exit the freeway and park about ½ mile up the road. I wasn’t sure why he stopped but decided to try catching him before he drove away. When I finally got to his car, I saw that he was sound asleep. So, I tapped on the window hoping he wouldn’t shoot me. He woke up with a start and asked what I wanted. I explained our situation and he agreed to drive us to the nearest gas station about 15 miles up the road in Beaver, Utah. I talked with the gas station owner in Beaver and arranged to have our car towed to the gas station where he quickly diagnosed it as having a blown head gasket. He said we MIGHT be able to get it repaired at a local garage but, since it was the weekend before 4th of July, he wasn’t sure. So, I called the garage and amazingly they said they would try to fix our car. Unfortunately, that meant we would be stranded in Beaver, Utah for about 5 days with no car and no place to stay. Unbelievably, the gas station owner said he would lend us his car while our car was being repaired. He also recommended we drive down to Cedar City where we could find a motel. At that time, we knew nothing about Cedar City but didn’t have many options. So, we drove about 1 hour south to Cedar City and found a cheap motel. By dumb luck, it turned out Cedar City was having its annual Shakespeare Festival. I hardly remember anything we did while stranded in Cedar City but I will always remember seeing The Tempest with Prospero played by Harold Gould. Now, twenty-seven years later, it was  interesting seeing how much Cedar City has changed and how it has become famous for its Shakespeare Festival.

Things I Learned On This Day (#TILOTD) –

• Archaeoastronomy is the investigation of the astronomical knowledge of prehistoric cultures
• Hadrosaurs were one of the most plentiful dinosaur species in North America 65 to 75 million years ago.
• Cedar City is famous for its annual Shakespeare Festival.