September 16, 2012

OUR NEXT BIG DESTINATION IS BRYCE CANYON, UTAH. Carole decided to book a place about halfway there. When I asked her where we were going to be staying she said, “Ferron.” I replied, Faron, I’ll bet it’s the home town of the great country singer Faron Young; you know, “Hello Walls.” 

When I found it on the map, I could see that the town was very small and was named Ferron, not Faron. Carole said she wasn’t sure how she found the motel, but she could not book it on the Internet; instead, she had to call. A warning bell went off when she told me that she even got our room number when she booked the motel.

We took our time driving down to Ferron, stopping several times to take pictures. We saw a couple of signs warning of “Frequent deer and elk crossings.” Although we live in an area where there are deer virtually everywhere, we had never seen the word frequent in any of the warning signs near home. The only deer we encountered decided that it wanted to race our Durango; it lost to the Hemi.

The first big town (read around 500 people) was Price. Noting a number of cars near the fairground, we drove over there to see what was happening. When we got there, we could see that it was a model airplane club, the kind that flies miniature planes around by remote control. Years ago, our younger daughter and I were riding our bikes when we saw some of those remote controlled airplanes and pulled over to watch. After what seemed like several hours, we decided that we had seen enough. Carole and I spent about the same length of time watching the planes today as our daughter and I did years ago.

We ate lunch in the only restaurant in Price and discovered that it was a much hyped Sunday brunch.The place was packed with people from miles around to partake of the buffet lunch.  Business really picked up when a tour bus dumped out a large number of people.  Obviously, the driver knew that the restaurant was the only one within miles. Most likely, he had all of the passengers licking their chops in anticipation of the brunch. We ordered from the menu, and a loud woman behind us ordered prime rib. I had noted her earlier when she examined the buffet and returned to her table frowning and shaking her head. When her order came, she bellowed “Take it back; I ordered it medium rare.” Remembering my new, softer, mellower persona, I refrained from turning around and saying what I was thinking: “You idiot, what did you expect when you ordered prime rib on a Sunday morning in a buffet restaurant in a town of this size?”