I meant to write more about my road trip last fall before this. It’s been a year already. Wow! I’m back in Honolulu on the Seaward Explorer. I’m due to get off about the same time as I did last year. I’m too broke for another road trip when I get off this time, so just have to reminisce.

I love to fly in to Las Vegas. It’s a great starting point for so many cool adventures. Flights are cheap, so are hotels and food. I’m not much of a gambler. If I can, I’ll find a nickel machine and play video poker with $20 til it runs out. Sometimes I get bored before I lose it all. I enjoy talking to people from all over the world there. I also like to see a show while I’m in town. I’ll usually stay a couple of days in the city, then rent a car and take off exploring.

One trip I drove to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, then up to Kanab and on to Bryce Canyon and back around to Zion National Park. Last time I went through the Valley of Fire State Park, then through Zion to Cedar Breaks National Monument, Bryce Canyon National Park, Grand Staircase- Escalante National Monument and Kodachrome State Park. I was trying for Capital Reef National Park this trip. I figured I wouldn’t have enough time to see much of it so turned back. I made it all the way out Hwy 12 to Devils Garden. A pretty far out place with some cool rock formations. It was a beautiful drive over a washboard dirt road to get there.

I stopped at lots of places with gorgeous scenery and interesting history. All of those parks were just stunningly beautiful. Towns had lots of history and interesting stories. One such place was the ghost town of Grafton, UT.

Grafton was settled by 5 Mormon families in 1859. The Mormons had spread out all over Western Utah in the late 1800’s to farm and settle on the land. In Grafton, the main crop was cotton and they were doing pretty good with that for the first few years. But then they suffered through years of disasters: floods, diseases, and accidents. Relations with the Indians deteriorated. After a couple decades of this, most people moved out of Grafton and by 1906 it was abandoned.

Now Grafton is a fine example of a ghost town. It’s “a famous backdrop for movies, including “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” It really gives you a sense of the isolation, hard times and history of the place. I spent a pleasant 2 hours wandering through the vacant buildings and the nearby cemetery. I had a hard time finding the turnoff. Once I did it was easy to follow the signs to the town. If you like this sort of thing and you’re in the area it’s worth a quick detour.