Day 60 – 5/12/16
~16.2 map / 18.2 GPS miles
889.3 / 964.2 miles total

The joke of the day has been that Joey was going to come into town with 2 wives and leave with 3. Mostly to resupply, but also to satisfy some curiosity, we took an alternate to the official Hayduke route that passes through Colorado City, AZ / Hilldale, UT, known for being the center of Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, aka the extremist Mormons who practice polygamy.

There don’t seem to really be any stores in the town itself. Our resupply store was oddly situated in a business park half a mile off the highway in the opposite direction of town. Open 7 days a week and selling beer and wine, Bee’s Market is clearly not run by the FLDS. We had a wonderful 4+ hour long mid day break at the store, resupplying until Springdale, lounging at picnic tables in the shade outside, and charging our electronics at conveniently located outdoor outlets. It was a really nice break without all the chores and hassles of a normal town stop.

It was also a great chance to people watch. So many minivans and 15 passenger vans with tinted windows and clown car numbers of children piled inside. All the women wore skirts, some in pioneer style long dresses. Snippets of conversation overheard, “the other wives…”
After filling our food bags and bellies we proceeded north through the actual town. It was weird, kinda run down looking. Every house was shielded by a fence, but not the kind of fence to keep the dog in the yard. These were massive, solid metal fences to prevent anyone from looking in…or out.

We noticed a big sign on one building with a big dirt driveway. “Common Threads Community Thrift Store. Open Thursdays 10a-6p”. And it just so happened to be Thursday between 10a and 6p. What luck!!

We walked up to the building and found the odd entrance in the basement. The women working there were very friendly and explained certain racks were on sale: fill a bag for $5. Bubs found a new hiking shirt (hers has been sewn with dental floss at least a dozen times and the back worn completely through. Joey also found a new hiking shirt, why not at flat rate bag price! And I scored the biggest prize of all: a trashy romance novel, “[Sex this good is…] Only with a Cowboy”.

We finished the hot walk through town and got to a pack trail just outside of town. We had tanked up on water from a spigot outside the market, but I discovered mine tasted awful, like there was a dead rodent in the pipe. Bubs’ and Joey’s water from the same spigot tasted fine. Thankfully the seasonal creek we followed for a short ways was running and I was able to swap out my water.

The trail took us up Squirrel Canyon, popping out in hills of swirly red sandstone – so close to Zion!!

We cowboy camped on a saddle with a lovely view and enjoyed a bedtime reading of a few chapters of our new book, taking turns reading aloud.