Written by LaVarr B Webb, describing an adventure that took place about 1956, when he and his family lived on a ranch on North Creek, bordering Zion National Park.

We had been hiking in a little known part of Zion National Park just east of the ranch. We had hiked many miles over rough mountain trails, visiting a multi-colored, water carved tunnel (now called The Subway), enjoying clear cold springs, picking watercress, looking at dinosaur tracks, giant ponderosa pines, lacy western junipers, and cliffs and peaks with so many colors, shades and shapes they are beyond description.

Twilight, slipping in over volcanic blackened rimrock, reminded everyone that it was time for supper, and we were still at least two miles from the ranch. My oldest daughter, Laurel, 14, started a mild chuckle when she said, “Daddy, if you would loan me your knife, I'd shave one of these cactus and eat it, if I had some shaving soap.”

The chuckle became a laugh when Dawn, twelve, observed, “We could eat the sandwich's here.”

“What sandwiches?” I asked.

“The sand which is here,” she said, pointing to the banks of the creek.

But Julie, ten, sent us home in high spirits when she said, “I know something better. Let's take the knife, and prune some of these junipers, and eat the prunes.”