Trip to Island In the Sky Petroglyphs

The other day we drove to a place called Island in the Sky. It is only 6 miles from our house as the crow flies. We were with Marty and Ilene, and Steve and Charlene, friends of the Otts from Page AZ. It was a really nice rice, with one pretty difficult spot, and a lots of steep hills and deep washes, weaving around trees, great fun. Couldn't get there in a vehicle much larger than the Rhino.

Island in the Sky is a small mesa surrounded with cliffs, and at the base of the cliffs facing Kanab is a large cave where the petroglyphs are. The photo below is a section of the cliff approaching the cave. Check out the red stripping.














The petroglyphs were carved into this flat rock which is the floor of the cave. There are all sorts of strange inscriptions. Looks like aliens visited this part of the country a 1,000 years ago.

Part of the roof of the cave has fallen down. No idea how many more inscriptions are under the sand and rock.

Air Show in Saint George

On Friday the Bishop and I took the Young Men from our ward to Saint George. Fed them a good dinner, bowled, let them swim and hang out in a hot tub as long as they wanted (I went back to Lori's to sleep so it didn't bother me that they were in the tub until past midnight).

Saturday we went to the new Saint George Airport for the Thunder over Utah air show. It was incredible. There was 7 FA18 jets that the Navy Blue Angels perform in. A C-130 transport, a C-17 transport jet that you could walk through, lots of vintage planes, WW2 German and US tanks, a Flying fuel tanker, 3 Osprey planes, one you could tour, 3 P-51 mustangs, a bi-plane, a acrobatic plane, 2 F-22 Raptures, and I don't remember what else. Oh, there was also a pretty cool car show with about 20 corvettes, and lost of other cool cars.

They had a WW2 reenactment with the old tanks, about 2 dozen solders and the Mustangs flying air support. The Mustangs performed. A women performed on the wing on the bi-plane. With the high wind and the increased drag of the woman on the wing the bi-plane struggled to move into the wind.

An Osprey performed, and the Mustangs flew several times.

This is one of the P51 Mustangs. This was the fighter plane that allowed the allies to gain air superiority over the Germans in WW2. In the war it had 6 50 caliber machine guns mounted on its wings.

A bit out of order but this is the WW2 Mustang doing a fly-by with the F22 Rapture. One of the oldest fighter plans and the newest. Considering the difference in size and airspeed it was pretty cool to watch them do a big circle over the whole valley just this close.

The show really got started with the started with the big guns. One of the F22 performed for about a half hour. It was amazing. This is the most advanced attack plan in the world. They can't break the sound barrier this close to buildings so he never passes the runway faster than about 650 mph, but he goes by pretty fast at that speed. Most impressive was to watch as he would fly straight up at a tremendous speed to about 3,000 feet about the runway, then slow to a stall and gently float back toward earth backwards. As he approached the ground he would gently level out and fly off at an increasing speed.

This is the F22 Rapture on takeoff.

This is a nice view of the underside of the F22 Rapture. Notice the exhaust behind the plane. When this was over you just stood in amazement, couldn't believe what you had seen. Picture don't do it justice.

The next post has photos of the Navy Blue Angels performing.

Air Show in Saint George

The main feature of the air show was a nearly hour long performance by the Navy Blue Angels. They were amazing. They flew six planes and performed all kinds of feats. One wonders how they survive. This photo is two FA18 (the plane they have been using for about 25 years) passing by the review stand at about 30 mph ground speed. Point the plane in the air and give it just enough power to keep it in the air, moving slowly by.

This is just one of the maneuvers will all six planes. They had been flying very close together then they split in 6 different directions.

This is one of the most incredible maneuvers. These 4 planes flew by with about 18 inches separating each plane. What the photos don't show is the gusty winds that were blowing. While this was going on you had to hold onto your hat. Don't know how they do it.

You have to look close to see what is going on, but the two planes are passing the review stand, one inverted, landing gear extended, and almost touching.

There are a lot of maneuvers I didn't post, such as two planes approaching each other from opposite ends of the runway at about 500 mph each, and passing with just inches to spare. Or all six planes diving to the same spot over the runway from six points on the compass and all passing within what appeared to be inches of each other. All pretty impressive