Ninjas of the Underground: Great A.R.T. Part II: We were once exiles

Well, my car isn’t completely clean, but I’m gonna stop with the procrastination.
We left Provo early in the morning and headed south. The day started out cool and bright and the temperature rose as with the sun. I was very grateful for air conditioning.
We passed through Cedar City and continued to Hurricane. There we saw the sign pointing us to Zion National Park and the Grande Canyon. We turned but didn’t go to either.

This is not the Grand Canyon.
We did drive towards Zion National Park though. We drove through a town called Virgin. We thought this was funny.

We figured this was close enough. When we opened the doors of the car it was like stepping into an oven. I figured that without water you would die in that heat pretty quick. We figured it was time to be getting on.

So we made it to St. George. That temple was closed for maintenance too, but we stopped to take pictures anyway.

So my Dad had told me that I should find a place called Pine Valley near St. George because my ancestors came through there. Despite road construction and a rather steep climb, Isabel made it to Pine Valley. I figured that the historic Pine Valley Chapel was a good place to start.

The sign said to come in for free tours so I did. The couple there gave us some historic background on the area and on the building and then showed us around. They seemed impressed that I was a Forsyth and even more impressed that I was descended from the original leader of the community.

There were even portraits of some of my ancestors, including this woman. Family lore says she is a granddaughter of John Adams (2nd President of the United States). But that might be a myth.

The couple told me that there was a Forsyth Canyon in the area (I’m assuming named after my ancestor) so I decided I should check it out. I’m glad I did. While Pine Valley is generally greener than the rest of southern Utah, Forsyth Canyon was especially verdant, and several degrees cooler I might add.

Before I left I decided I should check out the cemetery. I found a couple of Forsyth names I didn’t recognise. The center of the graveyard was this guy and his 6 wives (I’m descended from the 3rd one).

So now for real we were on our way to Vegas. The most exciting part was where the I-15 cuts through a corner of Arizona. All that there is on that stretch is this gorge. I asked Tyler to take some pictures as we drove. I was a little busy with the steering.