St. George, Utah

June 10,2009
Waking to a sunny day and warmer weather we decide to call the nearest town with VW mechanics and a dealer to ask about repairs. St. George, in South Utah, is one the most rapidly growing town in the country with 50,000 people. Everyone we talk to on the phone is very friendly and helpful. Promising for getting something done and tolerable to stay in for the days it requires. And there is a Costco! which promises cheap gas and food we know! So the stage is set for easy car repair, we hope. We go to the repair to find nice seeming competent people. The owners’ daughter lives in Hawaii! Must be a sign!? They need the car overnight to be cold in the morning. And here the heat is rising, getting hotter and hotter and we wonder what to do.


We go to the Visitor’s Center of the Mormon Temple. It was the first tabernacle built. It is s beautiful graceful large white building. We learn about the history of the religion and its beliefs.Then we go to the library for the internet and quickly send urgent messages to couchsurfing hosts in the area asking if we can stay. While we are dealing with the car, one calls us back with good news that they have a bedroom for us!! We are so grateful for the angels that always come to our rescue!

These angels come in the form of David and Traci. They have built wonderful large home in the hills above St George with a custom saltwater hot tub and pool. Traci said she wanted to create it with a natural and Hawaiian feeling. And that they have achieved. The peaceful welcoming helping acceptance they give us is an oasis in the desert for us. We have fun exciting talks about our shared love of travel, religion (they are comfortably passionate about their Mormon religion), this land, and the history of their families (coming out West with the pioneer wagons and building the cities and this promised land).

We sleep in a larger, more comfortable bed than we have for a long time, happy to have found new friends.

June 11, 2009
We get up late for a change. So we have a quiet, catch up day waiting for the car - doing laundry, internet and taking care of our lives. Gerrit swims in David and Traci’s slide and pool. Take a walk around the neighborhood and work on our blogsite!! See what time on your hands does. We wait for news of the car, nothing comes and find out late in the day they have not much news and haven’t done much. Sharing a nice dinner with our hosts and heading to bed early.

June12, 2009 Friday
We call the car repair. They say the mechanic has just gotten started on the engine. We call back at 11, upset a bit to find that the mechanic is still in the beginning stage. We talk to him and then the owner calls and we head down to talk in person. The mechanic will work further to get into the engine to see if the car can be fixed by getting into the problem from the top of the engine or they will have to take the 2 days to drop the transmission and $1500 more to complete the repair. We wait at the shop to hear the news. They call us in to see what they have found!! We see a naked open engine lying with its heavy metal chain completely exposed. The head and valves with its spark plug wires lay on the other side alone. They can see a part broken in the timing chain box! At least they have found one thing that needs to be fixed. And in the top! Yea! Later they call us in again to see the broken part in pieces with some missing. This certainly needs to be replaced and there is a hope that they will finish it today by Friday before the weekend and we can have our home back!! Unfortunately the end of the day comes too soon and they cannot put Humpty-Dumpty back together again in time and we are carless for the weekend. We gratefully accept the loan of our hosts extra car to get around. We head out to a Harp Flute concert in the historic church in town and they a movie (Madagaskar II) out the in the park nearby. Summer fun.

June 13, 2009
We wake late again after a good night’s sleep our hosts offer to take us to some local Anasazi petroglyphs. We head over to the area via the town of Santa Clara that was the first established in this area by Swiss Mormon settlers. We stop by the antique dealer and (yum) Swiss bakery before we tour a house where the first leader lived with his 2 wives and their 24 children – SMALL! Then up to a hill in the middle of a ring of “Red” mountains. We go to the top where the Anasazi (or Pueblo Indians – living about 600AD) artists painted on the rocks. And the view is a high place of power from my view. On the way down we spot my first view of a roadrunner. Yes, they do exist. A medium sized bird with long tail feathers that can go 15mph. Very cute and so glad I saw a real one since I loved the cartoon. (alas, they are not purple and red and do not go BEEP BEEP!!)

Then home for a nap and a lazy afternoon and evening.