Grafton Take Two - Part Two

Across the road from the "official" entrance to Grafton are roads to other parts of the settlement. There are remnants of former farms, old-growth trees, quaint No Trespassing sign, and fences to keep you out.


Back up the road, you can visit the old Grafton Cemetery. The erosion and flooding that made it difficult for the settlers to stay are evident. Weathering has left its effect on the tombstones and the gravesites. Some of descendants of the families have come back to maintain the site and to maintain the headstones. In the background of the picture above, you can see that one site has been fenced off. The family has also levelled out the land, so you don't see the "hump" of the caskets, like you can below.
Since this was holy ground, I was trodding delicately, stepping carefully between gravesites and my own inclination to document carvings, dates, and family dynamics. I didn't take photographs of the section of the cemetery dedicated to the Native Americans buried within. No granite markers for them, just simple wooden stakes with the names that they were known by in English, not even their real tribal names. My heart broke for one family. There was no way that a photograph could even depict the poignancy of a whole row of little graves, one after another.

With the storm gathering in the distance, the wind whipping up, and the sense of the ancestors being not too far away, we decided to get out of Grafton before the road washed out. Remembering what the road looked like in January, we left hastily after my little rain dance led to the skies opening up. (I am so glad that J left his camera at home!)

I did stop to photograph the Virgin River Bridge in the rain. Metal plus rain plus storm --- not the smartest thing to do. But look at the light ... dark and moody. Just like I like it.

Since it was raining, the bro and I picnicked under a shelter near Zion. It was a lovely hour or so, just us catching up, watching the clouds rolling through the valley, and breathing in the most incredibly sweet, fresh, crisp mountain air. If you could bottle that air, you could make a fortune. It was the kind of air that makes you remember you have lungs and helps you remember what air is supposed to smell like. Spring/youth/cut grass/fresh rain/a storm/fresh breezes/home ...

As the storm pulled out of the valley, the clouds had the funkiest formations. My little toy camera couldn't quite capture it all, but J said that his weather geek friends would have been having a field day.

By the time we drove out down out of the mountains, we were refreshed and found ourselves under the rainbows. I kind of missed seeing Gandalf on this trip, but it was great lovely to visit the ghost town, spend quality time with the bro, and see Mother Nature in all her glory. The veil felt thin, with Grafton's families and ours looking down on us. We felt their blessings upon us, from our safe journey to our joyous rainbows of light.