Springs and the Calligraphy Highway pt 4 (Really? 4?): Calculating Pie

Okay it's officially the Weekend that Would Not End. Did we really do all this stuff in two days? Brain hurts just thinking about it and carpal tunnel syndrome on the horizon.

After our sobering visit to the Meadow Mountains site, we continued south down the valley. We were on the way home, but by no means finished yet. I'd seen Gunlock Reservoir and State Park on the map, it was over 110 degrees and we thought a swim would be all right. So, turning off at Veyo, down the 3184 - ooh, 4 digit road - we were bound.

But we got a bit side tracked by a sign about pies (that this can happen explains a lot about us.)

And not just a sign, but an actual pie bakery. It was too much to hope that there might be proper meat pies like at home, but the coincidence was too much to ignore. With a nod to the great Viands bakery in Kihikihi, we felt we really should stop at Veyo Pies. (Check their website. Many gifs.)

Pros:

• Pies, obviously
• Both start with V
• Both at the turnoff to expected awesomeness with swimming above a dam
• Hungry
• Is that guy on the bench there actually real or one of those very lifelike porch dummies? (He smiled back at me, so I'm going with 'real'.)

Cons:

• Yeah, hurry up so I can lock the car. It's hot out here.

Result:

• They have a volcano pie.
• Yes, a volcano pie. It is chocolate pudding and caramel and cream. Though I think I preferred the sour cream and lemon pie.

At Gunlock we picnicked in questionable shade and made coffee in the crazy heat - I'll post more some time about my wonderful stove - gotta have coffee with your pie. Then walked across the dam to an orange sand beach and oh yes that water was not boiling, not even once you were in.

But the pleasures of more eroded sandstone were still in wait. We continued down the gorge of the Santa Clara, through the extremely lovely Shivwits Paiute land, and around east towards St George, to find further wonders:

How had I never heard about this?

These sandstone cliffs are stunning. I have never heard anyone mention them, never really seen them in guidebooks. It's amazing to live in a region where something this exquisite is no special cause for comment. 

If this weren't enough for a sense of perspective ... we proceeded through charming, historical, Santa Clara town (once a separate place, now part of the ever-spreading urbanosis that is St George) to this stop that Simon wanted to make and I happily seconded: Tuacahn Performing Arts High School and its astounding amphitheatre. You have to ask yourself, how confident would a performer need to be to have this as a backdrop?

And finally, a run down through the wild and scenic Beaver Dam Wash, a brief stop at quirky Beaver Dam AZ for iceblocks and cold drinks ... and on down the I15.

Coming down the interstate, you crest a gentle rise of land and Las Vegas is suddenly revealed, wrapped in the milky, fine, and alkaline dust of a million years of erosion, evaporation, wind blowing over desert. The towers and strange shapes in that soft light are like a dream half remembered, or a memory half dreamed. 

Yeah, we're nearly home.    

Itinerary

Sunday: Meadow Mountains Historical Site Overlook, Turn right onto 3184 at Veyo, Gunlock State Park, Kayenta, Tuacahn, Beaver Dam, Las Vegas.