Not far from the Honeymoon Trail is another wonderful oasis in the middle of the desert, Oak Grove, it’s a part of Dixie National Forest in southern Utah, with an elevation 6800 ft. I’ve been up there a couple of times and each time there was no one else around. Just you and the beauty of the place.
It reminds
me of back home with tall pine trees that reach for the sky covering the top of the mountain. It’s almost serene, a place you can go to think, have a picnic, or just write a few scenes in your book. This place has an old rustic rock gazebo, beautiful trails, and a spring that pools up along one trails creating a picturesque place that just one visit gives a person forever memories.
This scene from my book, New Parish, is set in Oak Grove:
“He’d shown her the trail that led to the gazebo he built before he ever built the cabin. He’d used very rustic materials to build it, round creek rock and rough hewn beams and poles for the open walls, with split cedar shingles for the roof. Sarah thought about sitting in there on the benches that he’d made to go around the inside along the creek rock lower walls. Then her mind turned to the other paths they walked, one led to a small waterfall stream that they had splashed each other in, Sarah smiled warmly at that memory. Another path led them through the tall ponderosas that seemed to be reaching for the distant sky, she remembered seeing little snippets of the surrounding mountains through the trees which gave them even more grandeur.”
I always try to make the settings in my books as real as possible, so, I write about places I’ve been… those places range from all over the south east to all over the south west, and a few other places. I do love to travel…
Below are a few pictures from my visit to Oak Grove:
