Day Twelve- Saturday 26th April

Snow at Jacob Lake, Arizona

The Colorado River goes through seven states and to see it at the Hoover Dam providing water for millions of people, and seeing it up close where people go down it in boats as recreation is surreal. This river provides water for Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, California, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, the main source of water from the snow peak mountains traveling south towards the desert. The Lost Ranch, Lonely Dell Ranch was in a way quite sad; the small cemetery used headstones which provided us with information about the way they lived and died. In some cases, small children or babies had passed and families had all died on the same day. This led us to think that they could have been murdered as a family.

Snow in Arizona was surprising to me, and only twenty minutes separated the desert and six inches of snow. It proved that weather here changes every hour. Jacob Lake gave us a unique chance to go into a log cabin where they had open fires and a relaxing atmosphere away from the cold. There we spoke to a couple of men who were hunting, one of which was able to kill a wild buffalo, as there aren’t that many left hunters are given a lottery in order to get a permit to kill them. Luckily this man won the lottery and shot a buffalo eight inches smaller than the world record. This was obviously an achievement for this man however it still made me wonder why a lottery should be done on a decreasing amount of wild buffalo. Leaving Arizona again going into Kanab, Utah gave us another insight into small town America. Kanab has been given the nickname of ‘Little Hollywood’ as it has been the place where many western Hollywood movies were filmed.¹⁴ Throughout the town, small plaques dedicate the actors and actresses that filmed in this area, including Ronald Reagan and Adrian Booth in the 1950s and 1960s. I could definitely live in this area, it was quaint and every person we spoke to were interesting people who loved this town.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­¹⁴ Kanab City, About Kanab, Kanab Utah A Western Classic, http://kanab.utah.gov/resources.cfm