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The Decline and Fall of Southern Utah

I wasn't expecting it, but there it was. A long aluminum ladder slid out of a pickup truck in front of me on I-15 near St. George, UT. It slid fast on the pavement, so there would be several seconds before I could run over it. But what if it flipped up onto the windshield! With any luck, it would stay one lane to my left, and I wouldn't run over it at all.

But pavement isn't completely uniform, so the sliding ladder was moving over towards my lane. I slowed down and moved to the right. No disaster occurred.

How fitting and proper it was that this near-accident involved construction equipment near St. George, where half the economy is in the building trades.

Everything I will say about St. George is colored by the fact that I knew the town before the population explosion started in the first years of the new millennium. Today, only the landscape is still recognizable.

I doubt that it is much of a housing bargain anymore, unless you are retiring from a giant city, probably on the Coast. I suppose homeless people and young people living in vans are not that many years away.

Or maybe the real estate industry will evolve in this direction:


This structure was a little too sophisticated for a treehouse built by a couple 10-year-old boys out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Maybe it is a mother-in-law's apartment; they are said to have strong Family Values in Utah.

Notice the window air conditioner on the left side. How did those ten-year-olds carry it up the ladder to the treehouse? And why did they bother?

Yes, it is true that America's favorite retirement mecca has 5 months of triple digit heat in the summer. But it is cool compared to Phoenix or Vegas. And after all, it is 'only a Dry Heat.'

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