Carmen and I left Regina on our first leg to Mesa, AZ on October 26. We went through the border at Climax, and arrived at the hotel around 4pm – about 9 hours on the road. The next day we were off to Ogden Utah for the night, another nine hours on the road leaving 6 hours to Mesquite, NV where we will stay for 4 nights, meeting Karen and Serra who arrive Oct 29. On our way down the I15 to Mesquite, Carmen and I took a slight detour off the highway and made our way to Parowan Gap to view petroglyphs on the cliffs. We wandered along for about an hour before continuing another 2 hours to Mesquite. We checked in at the hotel, went to Walmart for a few things called it a day!
Parowan Gap: An ancient river cut a 600 foot deep notch through the Red Hills making it a classic example of a wind gap when the water disappeared with ancient climate change. It also became major route through the Red Hills used by ancient peoples of several different cultural groups, probably starting with the nomadic Archaic people. Though these ancient people hunted and gathered plants, migrated with the seasons and left a few artifacts behind, archeologists believe most of the petroglyphs were done much later.
The Sevier-Fremont lived in the area over a thousand years ago starting about 500 AD. Archeologists believe most of the designs belong to them. Researchers also believe the Fremont are closely related to the Paiutes, Hopi and other Southwestern tribes. Both present day Southern Paiute and Hopi claim that their semi-nomadic ancestors created some of the designs. The petroglyphs include geometric designs, images of lizards, snakes, mountain sheep, bear claws, birds, bird tracks and human figures. Some Archaeoastronomy perspectives believe some of the petroglyphs represent astronomical events. Southern Paiutes see their migration from old world to new in the petroglyphs, while the Hopi see the story of their ancestor’s covenant to be stewards of the Earth in some of the designs.
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