Life Story of Ruth Elizabeth Proctor-Part Ten

Written by

Ruth Elizabeth Proctor Cook

Joyce, Cleo, Ruth, Lois, Darrell and Kay

In July 1972, Cleo, Darrell, and I went on a little trip.  We left Menan about 7:30 a.m. and traveled to Daniel Junction, Wyoming, from there to Rock Springs, Wyoming.  We stopped here for awhile and then on to Craig, Colorado, where we stayed in a KOA Campground.  We had our pickup with camper.  We left there the next morning and arrived in Rifle, Colorado.  It was an old mining town.  Whenever we wanted to eat or rest for awhile, we always seemed to find a nice place where we could stop.  Cleo and Darrell did the driving and I was the co-pilot to both of them.  We went to Franks Plateau.  We stayed in a place that night where four states connect together--Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.  It is called the four corners.  They have built a large plate like thing with the name of the four states.  You can put each one of your hands in a different state and your feet in the other two, though you look like a stink bug with your boony stuck up in the air.  We all had our pictures taken there.  We parked our pickup on the New Mexico side.  Lo and behold in the middle of the night, here came a gang of people on their motorcycles.  They just kept going around and around.  They all had spot lights on their cycles.  They yelled and cursed something awful.  Someone came to our camper door and asked if they could park closer to us with their camper.  Cleo told them yes.  He wasn't about to let a bunch of dumb kids chase us away from where we were.  So they put their camper quite close to ours.  Some of the people pulled out but we stayed.  Cleo and Darrell took turns sleeping and watching.  The dumb kids had been drinking and were acting and talking very rough.  We had a family prayer and asked our Heavenly Father to watch over us.  Finally around dawn, they seemed to settle down.  I think most of them passed out.  When we did look out, they were gone but what a mess they had left there.  We settled down to get a few more winks of sleep.

Cleo and Ruth 1972 Arizona Desert 

When we did get up, the whole circle was filled with Indians.  They had cleaned up the mess the motorcycle gangs had left.  The Indians were in full head dress, the men and the ladies were in their Indian dress.  They had spread their jewelry and other things they had for sell on their Indian blankets.  They earned this money from the tourists.  I went and looked at their things.  They wanted more than I felt I could pay for them.  Darrell went around looking and found a beautiful necklace.  He said he talked with them and finally got the necklace down to price he was willing to pay for it.  He gave it to me.  Cleo talked to one of the Indians who seemed to be in charge of everything.  Cleo told him about these kids on their cycles.  He told Cleo they have had to come and clean up after them all the time.  They seem to get away before they can catch them all the time, but they were on the lookout for them to make a small mistake then they would book them.  We ate our breakfast there, then we left for Tuba, Arizona, on to Wickenburg, Kingman.  We always stopped at points of interest along the way and ate when we became hungry.  We arrived at the Grand Canyon; it was quite a sight to see.  We took picture there.  We were on the west rim of the Grand Canyon.  We went to New Mexico and saw the Indian ruins.  We went through their homes.  We went into a ceremonial room where they performed their weddings.  You had to stoop down very low to get through their doorways.  Some places we had to crawl.  It was all very interesting.  When we left the Grand Canyon, we came out through Williams, then on to Flagstaff and Phoenix, Arizona.  There they had a six lane highway.  Darrell did a lot of the driving, and we were watched over and blessed.

Cleo and Ruth 1972

We stayed one night in Circle City, Arizona at a KOA Campground.  We could use their showers, which we did.  I washed and dried our clothes and we used their swimming pools.  It wasn't very far from the air force base and planes and jets flew over all night long, so we didn't get much sleep that night.  We went to Hoover Dam.  We drove around the dam.  It was great to see.  From here we went on to Las Vegas.  We pulled into Kings Row Campground for campers and motor homes.  This is one of the neatest that we stayed in.  We locked our camper and pickup and down the strip we went.  Seems like I was lucky on each machine I played, but Cleo and Darrell lost everything they put in.  They ask me to trade with them.  I did and those machines paid me good.  Darrell wasn't questioned so we let him play while he was with us.  We played for awhile and they kept losing, so Cleo said for us to go back to the campground.  I told Cleo I was going to put a dollar in a machine.  He said I would just lose it.  I told him I had won all night.  I had $10.00 in my pocket I had gotten off the other slots.  Glory be, I put it in and the bells began to right and lights flashed and out started came the coins.  I won $25.00.  They came around with drinks on the house but we told them we didn't drink so to give it to people who did.  Some guy that was quite drunk told Darrell he would help get the money.  Darrell gave him a shove and said we didn't need any help. 

Darrell 1972

While we were on the trip, we went to Lake Mead and Lake Powell.  There were a lot of house boats on Lake Powell.  We also went through Fort Crawford, saw lots of wild life in the mountains we traveled through.  We saw Bear Creek Falls.  It drops 227 ft.  It was sure something to see.  After we left Las Vegas, I told Cleo I would take good old Idaho any day.  We traveled on to St. George and drove around the temple grounds, got out and stretched our legs.  We went through Circleville, Utah.  It wasn't a very large town, so we went on to Richfield, Utah and spent the night there.  We were driving around and passed a church with a ball diamond.  We stopped to watch.  One ward didn't have enough players, so they asked Darrell to play.  Darrell went out to left field for them and caught some good long fly balls.  When he came to bat, he hit one over the fence and they had two runners on base.  They asked him where he lived and if he would be interested in moving to Richfield.  One fellow told him that no one on that team or any other team had hit a ball over that fence in center field.  Darrell had fun and it was fun for us to watch him. 

Darrell 1972

We stopped in Salt Lake City and visited with Opal and Atha.  Then we came on home to Menan, our good old home.

Ruth and Cleo

Cleo was athletic director in our ward and he felt like someone else was doing the job he should do.  I enjoyed going to the games and watching the kids play.  I started keeping score for our ward when Franklin started playing softball.  I also kept score for the men, ladies volleyball and men basketball games in our ward, stake and regional games.  You might wonder why Kay wasn't with us on this trip as he and Darrell were the only ones home at this time.  Kay was planning on getting married in August and had a job so he had to stay home and go to work.  I would have loved to have had him with us.  We had a fun trip. 

Also this summer the Proctor reunion was held in Saratoga.  That is out of Lehi, Utah.  That is the last Proctor reunion Cleo went to.  

Vicky, Kirsten and Freeman Anderson, Bruce and Annie Jaynes
Frank and George Jaynes, Cleo

George and Annie Carol Jaynes, Opal and Atha Staker
VaNeta and Jim Proctor, Ruth and Cleo Cook