We needed to spend the night in Southern Utah, so that we could get an early start on hiking the next day. I picked Kanab because it was on the way to Bryce Canyon, but I really didn't know much about the town. I only knew that its dot on the map was bigger than the one for Fredonia, and smaller than the one for St. George.
After leaving the dance at Hotevilla, we got back in the car and headed north. We hit Tuba City on the Navajo reservation after about 20 minutes in the car, but that was far too soon to stop. Unfortunately, there is absolutely bupkis between Tuba City and Arizona's northern border. So everybody held their bladders and we enjoyed the uneventful--but very pretty--drive.
Fredonia is the small town on the Arizona side of the border with Utah. But "small town" is probably too generous of a term. "Large dust pile" seems more appropriate. So you can imagine our surprise to travel about a hundred yards north to the green grass and white picket fences of Kanab, Utah.
The change is beyond striking. It's like the town has absolutely no idea that it's smack-dab in the middle of the high desert.
My aunt, spending most of her adult life in water-conscious Tucson, was apoplectic.
We pulled into the Roadway Inn around five or six, and we checked in with the living entity at the desk. I'm almost entirely sure that she was a human being. She came out of a back room when we entered the lobby, and she nearly evaporated when the sun hit her ashen skin. She barely said five words as we checked in. I'm telling you, this is one of the strangest cities that I've ever visited. Aimee asked if we stumbled into the Truman Show.
Against my better instincts, I attempted to make friendly conversation, and I asked if she had been to the one restaurant I knew in Kanab. My housemate had recommended the place, saying, "It's good. Well...it's not bad for Utah."
In response to my question, the sentient being at the check in counter said, "How should I know? I never get out of here." I assumed that meant it was a fancier restaurant, perhaps on the opposite side of town. It was a cafe, quite literally across the street. And it wasn't half bad.
We walked around for a bit after dinner, and we noticed a series of placards along the main drag. They featured golden era Hollywood stars, and the posters for several mid-century Western epics. Kanab is apparently known as The Hollywood of the West. There were quite a few movies filmed in Kanab during the 50s and 60s, which explains why the entire town felt like a film set. But nothing has really changed. They don't get out much.
The next morning, I stopped at a Sinclair gas station on the way out of town. My aunt exclaimed that she hadn't seen a Sinclair since she was a kid, which seemed appropriate for the town. I walked into the attached convenience store to pay for my gas (there wasn't a card reader on the pump). The two octogenarian customers at the counter looked up from their coffees as the septuagenarian employee smiled and said, "Son, you pay me after you fill up." This certainly wasn't Tucson. It took me a minute to figure out the pump, and when I went back in to pay, I heard the customers talking about shifts at the plant. I half-expected them to take out tin lunch boxes and warn me about the Soviets.
Kanab, Utah is a strange little town.
