Homeless During COVID-19 Social Distancing

I have been curious how our homeless population is dealing with social distancing during the COVID-19 outbreak. It seems that under normal circumstances I see them gathered in groups, large and small. So I took a short drive downtown to see.

People waiting for breakfast at the St. Vincent DePaul Center seem to be socially distanced at least somewhat. We have a church assignment coming up soon to help prepare or serve. I don't know the status of the assignment. When I've worked here before, we were in pretty close quarters that I wouldn't want to be in, but people do still need to eat. 

The courtyard behind St. Vincent is pretty crowded. 

There were a bunch of homeless camps on Main Street near the 700 South intersection. 

But police were breaking these up. 

The car in this picture is a police car with red and blue lights on. The police are dispersing the people camped here. 

Some police wore serious masks. 

These people are all cleaning up their camps. 

These people are taking down their tarps. 

This guy is taking his tarp down. He had something that looked like ski poles as corner posts and bicycles inside the tarp as walls. 

This couple was folding blankets and stacking them on their cart. 

I don't know where all this stuff goes during the day. And the people.

It's still early in the day, but this taco trailer looks pretty lonely. The taco businesses here usually have a line of customers anytime of day or night. 

Nine Mile Canyon March 28, 2020

Today was the first "Stay Safe, Stay Home" directive from Governor Gary Herbert due to the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) disease, which is caused by a virus called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). His directive is not an order, which would include legal penalties, although it is an order in Salt Lake City and other locations. Governor Herbert's directive said that recreation is okay remain at least six feet apart from individuals from other households when  engaging in outdoor activities (i.e., walking, hiking, running, biking, driving for pleasure, hunting, fishing).

So, today we took a pleasure drive with the Austins to Nine Mile canyon near Price, Utah. Nine Mile Canyon is about 40 miles long and is called "the world's longest art gallery," thanks to the thousands of petroglyphs (carvings in rock) and pictographs (paintings on rocks) made by the Fremont and Ute native Americans about 1,000 years ago.

The freeways and Highway 6 to Price had very little traffic. We met at the Chevron station in Wellington, which is also where the Nine Mile Canyon road begins, at noon, and explored the canyon until about 5:30. We saw about three other parties at Rassmuessen's Cove, which has picnic tables and an outhouse, and met only one family on the trail. One couple was also just leaving The Big Hunt site when we arrived. Otherwise, we didn't see any other people all day.

This is the first panel, about 26 miles from Wellington. 

Another look at the first panel. 

We hiked a ways above the first panel looking for some more petroglyphs that we didn't find. 

Here's Emi in a perfect resting place during a rainstorm, if there were one, which there wasn't. 

The Austins climbed above the panel for a picture. 

Chieko is pointing out a petroglyph panel 

Here are the Austins posing for a picture above the petroglyph panel. 

Austins hiking around. 

Caleb hanging around above everyone else. 

This is either a snake (which the maps we downloaded called it) or a river. We think the vertical squiggly lines are snakes, and the horizontal squiggly lines are rivers. 

This panel is one rock over from the snake/river. 

At first I thought this was a bird, but there are a lot of goats, and this now looks like a goat without legs. Maybe the "artist" got caught scribbling on the walls and had to stop before he finished the legs. 

Another panel of artwork. This canyon has a lot of these panels. 

This one is ver close to the ground, strengthening our theory that these pictures were made by children. Some of the people have arms coming from their heads, much they way little children draw people. 

Here's an overhead picture. 

This is a pictograph, which is a picture painted on the rock rather than craved into it. 

The Great Hunt is probably the most famous panel in the canyon. 

This is a modern explanation of The Great Hunt. 

Here are Jamie and Apollo. 

We tried to maintain the mandated "social distancing" six-foot space between members of other households. 

Here are Chieko and me in front of the Big Buffalo. We are in the same household, so the six-foot rule doesn't apply. 

Here's the group posing for a picture in front of the Big Buffalo. 

We saw a lot, a LOT of deer. Several hundred for sure. In herds all up and down the canyon. 

A small group of deer we saw grazing as we were leaving the canyon. 

Bear River Bird Refuge March 27, 2020

With everyone hunkered down due to the Corona Virus, we decided to take a drive to the Bear River Bird Refuge for a little refuge. There were a few people there, but not many, and we didn't interact with anyone.

This bald eagle, plus a juvenile in a nearby tree, were in a field a ways before the bird refuge loop.

We saw a lot of American coots, also called a mud hen. A lot. But not too many other birds. 

Here are some taking off.

The scenery was beautiful. 

Like I said, we saw a lot of coots. 

And a few geese. 

Mountain view. 

Here are some pelicans. We also saw a blue heron but didn't get a picture, as he was skedaddling. 

This red barn is just before the bird refuge loop. 

St. George During First Serious Corona Virus Weekend

We reserved a nonrefundable room in the Marriott Courtyard hotel in St. George on a Friday night in March to watch Jackson and Tanner play volleyball in a tournament. We also found that Rod Stewart was performing that weekend in Las Vegas, so we also bought tickets to his show and reserved a nonrefundable room on Saturday night. I think this is the first time we have ever reserved nonrefundable rooms, but we were committed to going, and the rates were much cheaper.

In the meantime, the Corona Virus emerged from China and spread around the world. First the volleyball game was cancelled. But the hotel was staying open, and Booking.com wouldn't answer our request to cancel the room without a penalty. Then the Rod Stewart concert was "postponed." Then all the casinos in Nevada, including the one that housed our hotel, were shut down. All restaurants in Utah were also banned from sit-down dining, although take-out was still allowed. We decided that because we were going to end up paying for the Courtyard, we would go to St. George and enjoy the weekend.

Out first stop was the Red Cliffs Canyon Recreation Area for a little hike.

The weather cleared up for us. Earlier the area had rain and some snow. We passed through a snow storm through Beaver on the way here. 

Spring began yesterday about 9:40 p.m. in Utah. Salt Lake City is still really in winter with only a few tulip leaves starting to poke out, and a few daffodils. In St. George, spring is in full bloom, with the trees already turned green. 

This is a backlit tree on the trail to a waterfall from the Red Cliffs campground. 

And a tree with really twisting branches. 

This is the first waterfall. Okay, this isn't a Yosemite Falls, but this little stream, its little waterfalls, and the pools below the falls in the red rock are really pretty and calming. 

Chieko is resting against this rippled rock. 

Just some palm-tree-looking plants mixed with red sandstone rocks. 

Chieko is looking down from a rock above me. 

The cactus against the red rock is also pretty, I think. 

Chieko is hiking toward the second waterfall, but there are some obstacles, like the need to cross the stream three or so times, and scaling the side of a rock wall above the falls. 

If you look closely, you can see a guy in a red jacket coming down the rock wall with the aid of a rope. 

Chieko is just starting up the rock. 

This is the upper waterfall with a deep pool that swallowed my $2,500 lens when it jumped out of my jacket pocket. 

This is Chieko coming down the rock using the rope. Climbing down is much harder than climbing up. At least it's scarier. 

Here's a weird old tree stump. 

This is looking from the Orson B. Adams house. 

And a panorama view from the same place. 

We were supposed to go to Rod Stewart's "The Hits" concert on Saturday night. Before that we would likely have eaten sushi at Sushi Takahashi. It is Chieko's birthday, after all. Well, the Rod Stewart event was cancelled, but we drove to Las Vegas from St. George and had the sushi anyway. We ate it in the park, because no restaurants are allowed to have sit-down guests due to the Corona virus (Covid-19). 

This is what Las Vegas looks like as a ghost town.

We couldn't eat at Sushi Takashi as we had planned, but they were still open and doing takeout. So we took out to a park. 

We thought going to the Valley of Fire would be a good place to spend some time away from other people ("social distancing" is one of the government-encouraged virus-avoidance strategies). I haven't been here for a very long time, and probably have never seen more than two or three other people when I was here. I also had no idea how big this area is. I thought it was about a two-mile stretch along a paved road that turned into a dirt road in a sort distance. Well, I was wrong on both counts. This place is really quite large, and a lot of other people had the same idea. Still, there weren't crowds, and we were able to stay away from others for the most part. 

Here's Chieko on the edge of a cliff. 

I'm on the same cliff. As you can see, this is quite dangerous. A slip could mean falling four or five feet to the rocks below. 

Chieko in front of an interesting rock formation. I believe this is the same formation as Arches. 

I've seen a lot of cairns directing the way on trails, and hiking to Bowtie Arch near Moab there is a large area that people have covered with cairns as a sort of artwork, I guess. Here, cairns are considered graffiti that should be reported. 

Here's an interesting rock with strange striations. 

This is along a hike down to a place where there's a piece of a Mexican hacienda built by a Hollywood studio for a movie in the '60s. 

Here's Chieko and I hiking up the trail. 

More purple striations.

A purple flower. 

And a yellow flower. I think these were the only two flowers we saw all day. 

A purple rock. 

We drove around the loop to see Valley of Fire's only major arch. But we must have missed it. We saw only the arch, which is about five feet tall. And several more like this. 

More purple rocks. 

I thought this outcrop was interesting. 

I also like the contrast between this white rock and the red mountain behind it. 

This rock probably fascinated me the most. 

Chieko is hiking down some trail. 

We saw several crows. 

These stairs go to "Atlatl Rock" just before the Arch Rock scenic loop. 

The sign said these petroglyph on Atlatl Rock are 4,000 years old. 

On Sunday morning we headed to Snow Canyon, where we've never been, but it seems everyone else we know has.

We walked the trail over the Petrified Dunes. 

Every rock structure in Southern Utah is interesting. 

I think these are small moqui marbles. 

These look like moqui marbles still embedded in the petrified dunes. 

This is looking south at Snow Canyon from the dunes. 

Chieko.

Michael.

Next we headed over to Zions National Park. The lodges are closed and the entrance fee is waived due to the corona virus. The shuttle bus is also suspended, but there weren't too many people. Rangers stopped all the cars at the main lodge and would only let them through if there was parking available where they were planning to go. We wanted to go to Weeping Rock, but it's closed due to dangerous falling rocks. So we wanted to go to the River Walk at the end of the road. That was fine. They let us in, and there was plenty of available parking. 

Squirrels are completely not shy. 

And there were a bunch of them. 

There are a few small waterfalls along the River Walk. 

This is the end of the walk and the beginning of Zion Narrows. Also the end of our weekend trip.