Casual Friday

So, in case you didn't notice, December 21, 2012--apparently the last day on one of the Mayan calendars--has come and gone with no apocalypse. At least, not one that I (or anyone I know of) noticed. The world, it seems, has not yet come to an end. But when it does, I know one place where the people will be well prepared.

I stumbled onto Rockland Ranch several years ago when I was driving around the dirt roads near Canyonlands National Park in southern Utah. The first time I saw it I just snapped a few pictures and wondered what it was all about. The second time, about a year later, I decided to stop. The man who began the project--which has now become a small community--was away at the time, visiting Salt Lake City, but I talked to one of the people who lived there. He described himself as an Independent Mormon Fundamentalist. He had recently left another community was living there with his family.

The community consists of several rooms blasted into the side of this massive sandstone formation. There is an orchard, water tanks, solar paneling, power generators and fuel reserves. Everything you'd need to carry on in the desert for a good long while after civilization collapses when it eventually does, on some future doomsday.

posted by Stan Thayne