Squire Stalk: Thanksgiving 2012

Happy Thanksgiving!

My profile states that my blog is dedicated to my family past, present and future. Today I am going to focus on my present family. You have been warned...only proceed if you care about the Gallacher Family of today. My family had the wonderful opportunity of spending Thanksgiving in the Squire LaVerkin home with my parents. On this short 3-day trip nothing went as planned and it will be one that I will always remember and love.

On Thanksgiving morning I went on a walk with my two favorite men, Bret, and my dad, DuWayne. Dad pointed out the following places of interest.

The cabin in the foreground is my great-grandpa Morris Wilson's home. Morris was the first Bishop of the LaVerkin Ward. My dad said that when visiting general authorities would come they stayed in that little cabin with the Wilson family.

The home behind the cabin is the home that Great-Grandpa Morris Wilson built later in life. My dad recalled that he was out shooting his pellet gun at birds and the bullet hit one of the windows. He said that his great-uncle Morris felt pretty bad about the nick it left and dad felt awful about it.

Dad standing by the home of his grandparents, William and Sarah Amelia Sanders. He lived with them from the age of 6 to 13.

Dad and I standing outside of his first home that he bought with mom. An addition has been put on the front of the house. Dad said it used to have a beautiful porch. Apparently there is a picture of my brother MJ sitting outside of this house.

We finished off with a brief tour of some of the LaVerkin home structures.

My Grandpa Squire was very creative with wood and stone. He built this outdoor fireplace.

Dad unlocked the door to the little room that my Uncle Don used to sleep in. Below this room is a food cellar. Now it is full of spider webs and creepy things.

One of the two garages.

We had a mid-morning brunch and then Bret and dad went to work on the LaVerkin home.

Is there anything more attractive than seeing your man working?

Dad and I then went to the Virgin City Cemetery to find our ancestors buried there, which I will report on next week.

Dad then took me for a little drive just a street or two east of the cemetery to show me where the Sanders family did some ranching. As we were heading south looking for the ranch, we passed it and discovered that you can enter the back side of Zion National Park for free and there are several trail heads branching off from this road. (Good to know for later adventures.) Anyway, as we were heading back down the road we saw the ranch below.

Then our plan was to head to Chuck-A-Rama for our Thanksgiving feast. We arrived in St. George at 3:30 only to find a line that wrapped around the entire building. No Thanks! So plan B. We went to Harmon's which was closing at 4:00 and grabbed what we could in our 15 minute shopping trip. We substituted chicken tenders for turkey. Dad fried the chicken, so you know it was the best! Everyone helped out and it was a simple and delicious meal.

On Friday our plan was to hike a few of our favorite trails in Zion National Park. I think all the people that were at Chuck-A-Rama the day before had the same idea. As we neared the entrance with a long line of cars we could see a sign posted that showed that the parking lots were full and cars would need to park outside the entrance and take the shuttle. That's when I told the family about my drive with dad and that we could hike the back side of Zion for free. So we drove up the Kolob Overlook Road in Virgin. (At least that's what I think it is called.) At the top of the road there were a few parked cars and we saw a family coming back to their car. I asked them if there was anything of interest to hike there and they told me that it was a great hike and that if we followed the trail and hugged the rocks we would come to some Indian Hieroglyphics in a cave. Awesome! Let the adventure begin.