Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, UT

Oct. 17.  What a wonderful place for animals!  After visiting the Pink Coral Sand Dunes, we had time to stop by the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary.  It is in a beautiful setting in a canyon.  There are also great views of the surrounding bluffs from the road through the sanctuary. 

    

The group originated in Arizona in 1971, developing from The Foundation Faith of the Millennium religious group. The Foundation church relocated animals from its Arizona ranch to property near Kanab, Utah, in 1984.  In 1991, the church was renamed Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, which became a tax-exempt, nonprofit charity, and in 2003 renamed Best Friends Animal Society.  After the Foundation church moved to the current sanctuary grounds in 1984, the founders eventually began informally calling it "Best Friends" until 1991 when it officially began operating as Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, a no-kill shelter in Angel Canyon. The sanctuary is on 3,700 acres with an additional 33,000 acres leased from the United States Bureau of Land Management. 

We made it to the facility in time for the 90 minute tour.  We were taken around the grounds in a van and the driver gave us excellent explanations of the different facilities.  The road from the visitor center became dirt and it was amazing how the different sections for animals were so spread out.  The buildings for the animals are all top of the line, and there is even a brand new clinic right on the grounds, plus a small restaurant. 

 

Horses, pigs, goats, birds, rabbits, cats and dogs-they have it all!  There are thousands of animals in the sanctuary.  All are adoptable and you can even take one with you to your RV or hotel and babysit it for a night.  They give you bedding and food, etc., so you have every thing you need.  What a nice idea! The only problem is that I wouldn’t want to return the animal!!  I am such a softy for animals!  If you do adopt, the sanctuary will get the pet to you anywhere in the US.  There are other Best Friends facilities around the country and every effort is made to give an animal a loving home.

The sanctuary relies heavily on volunteers.  The volunteers, as well as staff, are each assigned to a specific type of animal facility and get to know those animals, feed them, pet them, walk them, etc.  I wanted to get out and pet the horses but the guide said they may bite.  The canyon provides natural rock fencing on parts of the pastures and there are several areas for the horses, even a special area for the ones that are put on a diet!  

 

Then we drove through the Angels Rest cemetery.   Each animal marker has a name on it and there are hundreds of them.  Even the local residents are allowed to bury their pet in the cemetery. 

   

After visiting a few other areas, we stopped at one of the several cat houses and got to play with some of the cats.  There were so many of them! The cats have plenty of room to play, plus some can wonder around inside the rooms and hallways if they are good. There are cute small screened and shaded strollers that the volunteers use to take the cats for walks.  Some of the cats are aloof, just what you would expect from a cat.  Others were so friendly.  My favorite is the one in the 1st picture.  He was so loving, and if I were to adopt, he would be the one.  I almost want to buy a van and take then all!!

The next stop was Dogtown.  We only got to see a few of the dogs and one was brought outside for us to pet. The dogs have a huge caged area and share it with 2-3 other dogs.  The dogs have access to the outside and have a large yard they can play in.  They are walked all the time by some of the volunteers.  My heart melted when I downloaded my photos and saw the expression I had captured on the dog’s face in the 1st picture.  Aw….. We only got to pet Roxann, and she was just such a loving dog. 

We didn’t get to see the birds and rabbits.  They have their own open house visiting hours.  Rabbits are so cute and I wanted to see them, so several days later, after we returned from another visit to Zion National Park, we stopped by the sanctuary for the scheduled hour to see the rabbits.  Rabbits are soft and pretty, but they sure are messy!  After some interesting facts about them, I think will stick with the stuffed rabbit toys!  I was disappointed that I couldn’t pet one. 

What a great facility the whole sanctuary is!  If I were to ever adopt again, I would adopt a Best Fiends animal. 

Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park

Our first day in Kanab, UT, we took a drive out to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park a few miles north.  The drive to the park offers great scenery of the colorful bluffs along the way. 

  

The park features coral-hued sand dunes located beside red sandstone cliffs.  The Dunes are formed from the erosion of pink-colored Navajo Sandstone surrounding the park.  High winds passing through the notch between the Moquith and Moccasin Mountains pick up loose sand particles and then drop them onto the dunes. The dunes are estimated to be between 10,000 and 15,000 years old.  The park allows camping, hiking, and off-road vehicle driving, plus a pretty scenic picnic area.  You can see ATV tracks all over the dunes closer to the road and up into the trees.  The total grounds include 3,370 acres and it was established as a Utah state park in 1963.

I was rather disappointed in the dunes because they just weren’t very big. They look bigger on a postcard. They didn’t come close in comparison to the Kill Devil Hills dunes in NC,  the Great Sand Dunes in CO, or even the White Sand Dunes in NM.    The fee to enter the park was $8.00 and the viewing and access area to the dunes was very small.  I was taking pictures into the sun the morning we were there so you can’t really tell the really deep pink color of the sand in the pictures I took.   

I wanted to be sure I got my money’s worth, so I hiked down the hill and out towards the dunes.  There were interesting animal tracks all over the place. 

Even heading back towards the main highway offered some great scenery.   I enjoyed that more than I did the dunes.  At least we can say we have seen the pink dunes & don’t know why we didn’t visit the park on a couple of previous visits to the area in our travels. 

 

Kanab, UT and Beautiful Red Rock Country

Oct. 15.  “Way out West, they got a name, for wind and rain and fire…..”.   Driving over a mountain pass and out into the rocky desert, bluffs, and cliffs, really makes you feel like you really are in the old west.  The sharp colors of the rock formations against the blue sky makes for really pretty scenery. 

     

Highway 89 is a beautiful drive and listed as a UT scenic byway.  As you crest the hills, you can get great views of the distant landscape.  We have driven this route a few times over the years and never tire of the views.  

We are staying for a week in the town of Kanab.  It is a rustic little town and fits right in with what you would imagine a small town in the west might look like.  We were surprised at how busy the town is this time of year.  There are plenty of gift shops and a few restaurants.  There are also outfitters that can provide all kinds of back country tours, etc.   Kanab is a great base spot for exploring Bryce Canyon, Grand Staircase-Escalante, Vermillion Cliffs, Pink Coral Sand Dunes, Zion National park, and even the north rim of the Grand Canyon and Lake Powell.  There are so many interesting things to see here that you could spend several weeks to do it all.  We are staying at the Kanab RV Corral.  Even this park is almost full each night, & there are a couple more RV parks around town.   You can see red rock bluffs right on the edge of town. 

 

We even have great views right from the back of our site.  The sunrises and sunsets on the cliffs give them even deeper beautiful color.

   

This area was first settled in 1864 and the town was founded in 1870 when ten Mormon families moved into the area.  There is even an old hotel that was built for actors out here during the earlier days of making western movies and it is still operational today.  Locals refer to Kanab as "Little Hollywood" due to its history as a filming location for mostly western movies and television series such as Stagecoach, The Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke, Daniel Boone, El Dorado, Planet of the Apes, The Outlaw Josey Wales. etc.   I am waiting for Marshall Dillon to step into the street at any time!

We have a list of things on our bucket list so this should be a great week! 

Daniel Boone Style Camping!

Oct. 14, on our way to Kanab, UT, we stopped for one night in Beaver, UT, because we just didn’t want to drive all the way to Kanab in one day.  The landscape changed to scrub land but there was still some fall color here and there on the mountains.  Beaver is just a small town in the middle of nowhere off of I-15.  It does have a population of 3,000+ people but most of it is ranches and farms.  Some unique facts about this very small town: it was settled by Mormon pioneers in 1856, is the birthplace of Butch Cassidy, was the 1st town in UT to be electrified from a hydroelectric plant, and in 2010 won top honors in the world for best tasting water.  Gosh, you certainly wouldn’t have known the little town had such an interesting history.  But today, the town is run down, has closed storefronts, just a couple of places to eat, and local businesses just trying to stay afloat.   All the ‘action’ is at the exit off the interstate where there are several truck stops. 

We had camped here before in May 2008.  This definitely is one of the most unique campgrounds we have ever seen!  The setting just reminds me of backwoods dwellings right out of the old Daniel Boone TV series.  (Giving away my age!)  The whole campground is built out of the same type of wooden planks and logs with the old west theme.  Very creative and it gives a whole new meaning to ‘rustic’!  It is surrounded by cow and horse pastures with views of mountains.  I think the two horses must be the camp hosts!

  

The RV sites are on very little gravel and dirt, and has their own rough cut wooden covered picnic table with the sign of the beaver, of course, marking the site numbers.  Very cute!  All you need is a ‘coon skinned hat, some leather clothes with fringe, a pair of moccasins, and you fit right in!  You expect Daniel Boone to greet you!  

  

There are only a few RV sites, and the rest are leased seasonal sites.  Each site can be fixed up any way a person wants, but must be built out of the same planks and logs as the rest of the park.  Some of these people have very unique design ideas and you feel like you are in Boonetown, USA!

    

The wife of the owner of the park is Mexican and runs a small restaurant right at the entrance of the campground.  It, too, is made of logs.  Some of the best Mexican food you will find.  We remembered from our first visit how good the food was, so knew that was where we would have dinner.   Yes, it was just as good. 

For children, there is even a replica of an old western fort to play in.  Plus, this old gypsy wagon was still there from our last visit. 

 

October and the trees were so pretty.  In May of 2008, when we left Beaver, we ran into a small snow storm!  1st picture 2014, 2nd picture 2008.  What a difference!