A river that runs through a desert is a rare and wondrous thing. Life clusters along its banks and thrives in the warm sun.
The most famous example of this is the Nile running nearly due north through arid Sudan and Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea. One of the world's original civilizations bloomed along its banks, and left to us monuments at which we still wonder. The Tigris and Euphrates are other well known examples.
Our winter place is near where eastern Nevada, northwestern Arizona, and southwestern Utah all meet. The area is desert for certain. And yet, a river runs through it, the Virgin River.
The Virgin is fed by snowmelt in the high mountains of Utah, it carved the fantastic canyon that is Zion National Park, spawned the boomtown that is Saint George, and carved another amazing but less-known canyon in Arizona down which today I-15 runs.
The Virgin was a stop on the old Spanish trail from New Mexico to California, then it watered the crops of the Mormon farmers who settled our region. Today it waters the 7 or so golf courses which entertain our retirees, and eventually it empties into Lake Mead.
The Virgin is no Nile, by most standards hardly more than an often muddy stream, but it made this particular desert area habitable. That makes it very nearly a miracle.
Hat tip to Mikhail Sholokhov for the title, and to the other DrC for the photo, taken in Zion Canyon.
