My mother was raised in a little log cabin way out in the sticks South of Moab Utah, actually South of LaSal, which is South of Moab.  She was born in 1916 and her father (Grand Dad Meyers) had built a nice cozy little cabin out in the middle of nowhere.  For some reason only he would know, he built the cabin on the opposite side of a dry wash from the  road that loops from the town of LaSal south and then west to the main road between Moab and Monticello.

Grand Dad was a self taught auto mechanic and when travelers cars would break down, he would go and tow them in and fix them.  We heard several stories from Mother about how people would come wandering in seeking help.

The area where the old cabin still stands is a desolate and yet beautiful one.  Grand Dad had homesteaded the place and when he pulled up stakes the property reverted back to the BLM.  They have since chained a large expanse of cedar trees down that used to occupy the land from the road over to the cabin, a distance of nearly 1/2 mile.

Mothers stories from here child hood still can be heard in my mind and she and her siblings had quite the time.  Poverty would have been the norm but she and her sisters and brothers didn’t know any different.  Grand Dad would hunt deer and bring in what he could to keep them fed.  Times were tough.  The weather very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter.

The cabin was built around a big old cedar tree and why Grand Dad decided that was a cool thing to do, I question his thoughts on it, much like placing the cabin on the other side of the wash.  In order to drive to the cabin, you had to cross the wash, and if there was water in it, it was impassible.  I suppose a man who had a trained Great Horned owl and a talking magpie thought differently than most do today (even in his day).  I loved that man!

The wash was the “playhouse” as mother called it.  She and her sisters would walk up it to a place where the rock walls formed shelves and on the shelves they would place their make believe store items or kitchen needs etc.  The walk up from the cabin to that place is several hundred yards and for children it would have seemed like a very long distance.  Rattle snakes, cougars and other dangers existed along the way and back.  Mother had stories about encounters with each of them.

At a very young age, Grand Dad taught her how to shoot a 22 rifle and she bragged about being able to shoot a squirrel right in the eye and not ruin any meat.  I saw her shoot and she was a great shot.  Not that I ever saw her shoot a squirrel in the eye, but I did see her shoot a nice 3 point buck.

So, what has brought this story to mind?  Well, I’ve been painting.  And painting leads one to clear stuff out of the way and then put it back.  I have a lot of junk that needs to be trashed and so yesterday I was filtering through the stuff and deciding what needed to be saved and what is truly junk.  I came across an envelope marked “Muzzleloader Hunt 1986”.  The hand writing was from brother Bob.  Inside the envelope were three maps that he had drawn for us that year to help guide us to some great deer hunting.  And one of the maps showed where the old cabin is located.

Bob did his best to try and guide us to shooting our limits of bucks on that hunt.  As it turned out we didn’t bring any venison home from that hunt, but it sure was a great time, with lots and lots of good stories.  I’ll have to tell you some later.

On closer examination of this map, which by the way, is quite detailed and accurate.  We can see the “x” marking the location of the cabin.

Meyers cabin is what he called it and it’s located in the Big Indian Valley.  I see on the map “Wise Cabin” and Mother told us of a story about Grand Dad on the last day they were living at the cabin.

It seemed that they were using water from a spring about 50 yards up the hill from the cabin.  Grand Dad had hand dug that spring and made it a useable source of drinking, bathing and cooking water.  All lined with rocks and easy to go and get water in a pale.  Old man Wise, who lived just over the hill behind them went into town and “filed on the water”, he now owned it and made a quick trip to tell Grand Dad this news.  Grand Dad was furious!  And to this day I don’t know why Mr. Wise lived another minute.  But Grand Dad did what he thought best at the time.  He got out all the dynamite he had and blew that spring to kingdom come!  Mother said the water and rocks and dirt were thrown hundreds of feet in all directions when that dynamite exploded.  And when all was said and done, the spring was not putting out any more water.  That is when they moved into Moab.  Besides the kids were nearing high school age and needed better schooling than shooting eyes out of squirrels.

I went on Google Earth a few months ago and tried to pick where I thought the cabin was located.  This was without Bobs map of course, but take a look at what I put together…

Pretty close to what Bob drew if you ask me.

So I have to credit this one to brother Bob!  Thanks for drawing us that map.  We didn’t see any deer around the cabin on that hunt, but we did eat some hot dogs and basked in the sun while we were there.

Bears Butt

Feb. 12, 2013 (Fat Tuesday)