What could possibly get me to set an alarm and get up at 7 a.m. on my birthday?
PUPPY SOCIALIZATION CLASS!
I KNOW!
So my birthday morning dawned bright and warm. Pretty darn warm. Kanab is high desert climate, so nights are cold, but days are sunny and bright. Really bright. This is what the sky looked like every day:
After modeling my fabulous angora scarf lovingly created by Wombat and then scarfing (Ha!) down coffee and doughnut from the lobby, we drove straight to the Dog Town Clinic for puppy socialization class. We were early (still planning for traffic!) and got to see a charming dog earn a lot of treats for being so darn sweet when asking for them:
The soft touch with the treat pouch was our puppy socialization leader Don. He led about ten of us volunteers back to the puppy area after explaining the puppy socialization program. Often, adopted puppies are returned just for being puppies -- curious, unpredictable, and wild. The primary goal of puppy socialization class is to accustom the puppies to being touched, handled, and surrounded by humans. Desensitization to people and their surroundings (umbrellas, loud noises, sudden movements) makes for a well-adjusted pet. Since Best Friends instituted the program, only one puppy has been returned by an adopter.
Suddenly, puppies are being handed out the door and I get to carry one up to the play area. There were four puppies -- survivors of parvo -- named Potter, Berks, Bedford, and Erie. We worked on name recognition, leash walking, and touching. The puppies were clearly precocious veterans of the class at 18 weeks and enjoyed all the attention. I was too busy hugging, but Wombat came through with some great pictures. There just can't be enough puppy love for me:
Don't tell Boom, but there was kissing.
After puppies, we were sent to another set of dog octagons for more walking and socializing. The different puppies were just as lovely as those from the first day. Including Chance who had one up and one down ear, making for a spectacular shadow:
Thoroughly blissed out on puppies and dogs by noon break, we headed over for our second round of $4 vegetarian buffet delight. I believe this was yummy vegetarian pot pie day. We had some time to kill before we visited the
horrifying scary bunny sanctuary, so we drove back over to the welcome center to shop at the
Best Friends store. Despite a marked lack of magnets and pins (hint to marketing dept!), we managed to drop some coin. These bumper stickers make GREAT gifts:
Then it was back to the bunny haven for the 1 p.m. tour. Except we had our time wrong and the tour wasn't until 2. As fate would have it, Wombat looked sad enough that the caretaker took pity on her and gave us a private tour of the area. Way many rabbits and some freaky looking hamsters too. Or maybe guinea pigs. Honestly, I didn't look too closely. My goal was to get out alive. They actually put us in a big enclosure with loose rabbits. I KNOW! So not right. Despite the sign saying "Warning! Rosemary will bite!" and the caretaker admitting that the rabbits go totally homicidal if you have more than 2 in a pen, Wombat was happy as a clam. She took some excellent pictures of the little death-dealers furry critters:
Having survived THAT ordeal, we left Best Friends and headed out for some sightseeing. The Kane County tourist guide had mentioned a few must see attractions and we found the first one on the road between Best Friends and Kanab.
Moqui Cave is one of those roadside attractions that you always want to stop at as a kid, but your parents keep driving. A cave built into a mountain right off the highway? Count me in! The current proprietor is the grandson of the man who bought the cave in the 1950s and turned it first into a bar and then a dancehall. The place was quite successful for many years, but after the bar fights became a regular occurrence, the cave was converted into a tourist attraction.
So how do you get people to pay $4 to see a hole in the wall? GLOW IN THE DARK ROCKS! Yep, that's the clincher. The front part of the cave is a mini museum where the bar used to be. The back part of the cave was cool and sloped downward a bit. As we got further in, the eerie glow of black lights bathed us in an unholy light. Us and a bazillion rocks. I'm scanning a postcard image because it was just too darn odd. Apparently, some rocks light up when you hit them with black light. Kids, I'm pretty sure you can try that at home. Let me know how it works out for you.
On to the gift shop where we bought lots of postcards to commemorate the weirdness of the attraction and found the perfect souvenirs in a sale bowl at the checkout. Now I'm not sure how many of you are aware that Utah is the Beehive state. Wombat wasn't aware, which I discovered as I commented on how much I liked the state highway signs with the beehives.
Wombat said, "Oh, I thought that was a ski cap." Which, without knowing the Beehive state tie-in, was a pretty good guess. So she bought me a beehive charm and I bought her a cow bell charm. Because she likes cows and because I had just received the last beehive charm. Thanks, Wombat!
Having seen all that Moqui Cave had to offer, we headed north again to take a look at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes. A bumpy trip along a road through nowhere and one left turn later, the canyon opened up and we saw several ATV caravans heading towards some pink-ish hills. We found a place to park the car and hiked straight up a sandy dune to see more sandy dunes.
I'm not sure I would call them coral pink, seemed more like brownish tan to me. But darn pretty, all those ripples.
Perfect for some artistic photography. Beware the three-legged tourist!:
The plants were very nice too.
I don't know what kind they are, so don't ask. I DO know that if you want to see the Tiger Beetle, a species found ONLY at Pink Coral Sand Dunes state park, you have to look for their tracks at a specific time of the year:
And don't bother naming your band The Interdunal Swales either. Wombat and I have dibs on that most excellent name.
Despite a fetching ranger with no wedding ring, we decided to return to civilization and prepare for our fancy dinner. A few cows slowed our momentum and got the paparazzi treatment. They didn't seem too concerned.
After a shower and a fresh set of non-doggified clothes, we drove the 1/4 mile from motel to our dining destination, the
Rocking V Cafe. If you happen to pass through Kanab when the Rocking V is open, I highly recommend it. Excellent food, charming host, and an art gallery upstairs. We encountered some other Best Friends volunteers (clearly, we all have good taste) and immediately set to determining which drink would suit us best.
Speaking of drinking, we had no problems getting drinks in the restaurants we visited and we did see the liquor store. However, there were no bars. There was a "lounge" in the little town of Fredonia just south of Kanab, but it didn't look promising.
Margaritas! Was that even up for discussion? Although I did move on to beer for my next trick. Have to try those local brews when you can. Dinner was lovely. I had the spicy polenta cakes and Wombat went with the deep dish veggie enchilada. Filling and flavorful. But always room for whiskey bread pudding, eh? Yum.
Having managed to outlast the other patrons (this town goes to bed early, even on a Saturday night), we took a tour of the art gallery upstairs and I managed to impulse shop my way into a lovely picture -- a digitally enhanced photo called "Time Stands Still" -- by
Chris Brock. It seemed an appropriate purchase on my birthday and I would have resisted had it not been revealed that the picture was taken in Ireland. (For those of you not in my immediate vicinity, Ireland is my 2009 trip!). So, with all credit and copyright to Chris Brock, the soon to be appearing on my living room wall:
We headed back to the motel and stayed up late talking and figuring out how the world should be and then went to bed. Wombat will say that I fell asleep while she was talking. This is not true. I was resting my eyes while contemplating her deep, deep conversation.
It is like somebody designed my perfect day. [Well, my perfect day without sex.]
Tell all your single friends, spend YOUR birthday in a special place!
XO, JamieSmitten
