St. George, Utah - More than just an oil change!

The weatherman has been predicting rain for a couple of the days we will be in the area.  So it seemed the perfect time to schedule an oil change at the Honda dealership in the nearby city of St. George.  While we sat in the dealership's customer waiting room, we had a grand conversation with a local resident that gave us lots of advice on things to do in the area.  Before the oil was changed, she gave us a discount code for tickets to the play that evening.  Suddenly our oil change turned into an all-day visit!


What's Denisa doing during this all-day visit?  It appears she is talking on the phone while being attacked by a grizzly while a polar bear looks on.  But she certainly looks happy about this grizzly situation.  Actually, she is intently listening to an audiophone describing the animals in this exhibit at a museum in St. George.

We had free tickets (compliments of our RV park) to the Rosenbruch World Wildlife Museum in St. George.  The Rosenbruch family spent a considerable part of their lives and fortune to hunt wild game all over the world.  They then spent the rest of their fortune to have them stuffed and put into a huge museum in Utah.  The picture below includes the animals in just part of just one of the floors of the museum.

Since we recently spent time on safari at Kruger National Park, seeing part the Africa exhibit was especially interesting to us.

The Rosenbruch family also collected insects.  There were the lovely butterflies, as well as the huge beetles that look like something out of a nightmare.

We spent part of the day shopping and eating in St. George, doing our part to pump up the local economy.  Then we headed northwest out of town towards Snow Canyon State Park.  We thought about camping here, as it was described as the most beautiful state park in the very beautiful state of Utah.  Mark is standing on top of one of the unusual red hills that looks like it should be in a commercial for wrinkle cream.

On top of that wrinkly red hill we spotted a few perfectly round, marble-sized red rocks.  Then we spotted a few more . . . and another large group . . . and then we walked over the summit and found thousands of these round rocks.  We're not sure what geological phenomenon caused this, but we'll chalk it up to another of God's wonders.

The state park was a mix of wrinkly red hills, majestic white mountains, black lava, and every combination between.  It was a beautiful place to wander this afternoon.

As we left the state park, a dramatic cloud was moving into the area.  We hoped that this didn't interrupt the outdoor performance we were attending this evening!

Just a few miles from the state park is Tuacahn Amphitheater.  Denisa had been listening to television commercials for this outdoor theater since she was sitting alone in Salt Lake City.

We had heard about their reputation for first-rate Broadway productions for a month, and we were lucky to snag some seats in the back section for a good price on a Tuesday evening.

This theatre plays to capacity crowds from May to October, every day of the week during all the months that will allow good outdoor temperatures.  There were almost 2,000 people from all over the surrounding states here with us on a Tuesday night.  Tonight's performance was a Disney production.  We were told that Disney is very particular about allowing theatres to produce their  copyrighted musicals, another evidence of the quality of this show.  We weren't disappointed--it was great!  Sorry, but no pictures were allowed during the performance.

We also don't want to give away any secrets, but the two lead parts were played by top-notch Broadway stars.  This picture is obviously not of those two stars.

We left home this morning for an oil change, and got back to the motor home a little before midnight.  We never know what will happen in the course of a day on the road.  But we do know that St. George is more fun than the average oil change.