Art fair in Escalante

Our first stop today was at the Visitors Center for Escalante Petrified Forest State Park. They had an exhibit about the Paiute Indians, who still live in the area. I talked with the park rangers about the Indians current status. They said that most of them lived in a nearby reservation but otherwise their houses and their lives are not very different from the lives of the other citizens in the area. They do try to pass on traditions and ceremonies to their children, but it's hard to compete with TV, the internet, and other modern entertainments.
There was also a board with letters from school children saying how much they had enjoyed their visit to the park and that they were sorry they had taken little pieces of petrified wood with them and (probably at their teacher's insistence) they were returning the petrified wood they had taken.

I also chatted some with a volunteer who was working in the garden in front of the visitors center. The area she was working in contained a variety of native plants and there was a huge pile of weed grass at one edge of the plot that she had pulled out. It seemed like a lot of hard work on a hot day, but when I mentioned that to her, she said, "Oh,no, this is really a labor of love."

                                                               music stage, art fair, Escalante, Utah

Our main activity for the day was the arts fair in the little town of Escalante, Utah. It was very different from art fairs closer to home. First, it was all contained within two wide streets that were closed off in the center of the town. At most there were no more than a couple hundred people present, so it was very uncrowded and relaxing.

There was an exhibit of paintings from various artists in the three- state area in one building. The paintings were being offered for sale via a silent auction. Across the street was a building where people were selling Indian jewelry, other craft items or homemade pies. Next to the building with the paintings a stage had been set up and there was musical entertainment provided by a series of local musicians. The musicians sang mostly folk songs we knew and/or liked.

We made our contribution to the local economy by buying a couple of hamburgers sponsored by the local elementary school. I'm not sure how good the school is. I gave the fifth or sixth grader a ten-dollar bill to pay for my $2.50 hamburger, and he needed a lot of help to give me the correct change. I followed the hamburger with a delicious piece of homemade peach pie. At the painting exhibit we put in a bid on one of the paintings of hoodoos from Bryce Canyon; later, we found out that we were the high bidder/only bidder on that painting and we are having it shipped to us. (Check our walls next time you visit us. We'll have it displayed somewhere.)

Around 4:30 we took a break and went to the Escalante Petrified Forest State Park and took a short hike on one of the trails where we saw a number of pieces of petrified wood.

 

                                        buying peach pie, Escalante Art Fair 

 We then returned to Escalante just in time to get in on the potato dinner being served at a pavilion as a benefit for the local Lions Club. For $10.00 each we received a large baked potato topped with chili and cheese and olives and tomatoes, a soda, and a very good fudge brownie topped with ice cream. I ate all of mine and we took away half of Elise' for another day.

Finally, we went to the high school auditorium to hear and see a slide presentation about John Wesley Powell, who was the first explorer to map this region in 1869.

And from there back to our nice warm cabin and a good night's sleep.