St. George is no longer a small town - we're starting to experience those “big city” problems. We even had a little excitement at my work this past month – in fact, it was the most excitement I’ve had since moving back to the States: on the morning of the 25th I noticed out my office window (my office window overlooks the garden area between my company’s two office buildings) that we had a transient loitering around – a skinny kid in dreadlocks, jeans, and purple tee-shirt. He only kept my attention for a minute because we’re close enough to the freeway that we get quite a few travelers who get off the highway and stretch their legs (and their dogs’) in our garden area. But then, a few minutes later I heard our metering department guys talking to the receptionists in the front office about a vehicle parked in our lot (the metering office overlooks the parking lot) which got my attention. I figured I’d better find out what was happening since my whole department (except me) was out in the field surveying. The metering guys were wondering whose car was the grey car. I told them that it was my staking engineer’s car. They told me that if that was the case, then they’d inadvertently interrupted a thief who was attempting to hotwire it. They hadn’t recognized the car, and when they saw the kid fiddling under the dashboard they assumed that he had mechanical problems and needed some help. When they went out to offer a hand they’d startled our would-be thief and so he took off, which made them suspicious. As we compared notes enough to put the pieces of the puzzle together, we spotted the kid over by the gas station by the freeway. So, while one guy called the police, three of us went to see if we could catch and hold him. After searching the gas station with no luck, a couple drove up in a car and asked us if we were looking for a particular kid, because he was trying to hotwire a car in the shopping center across the street. So our NFL-sized meterman took off running, and our Operations Manager/cowboy and I hopped in his pickup (which had the keys still in the ignition) and drove over. I surmised that the Walmart on the next block would make a tempting smorgasbord of unattended cars, so we headed that way. Along the way we spotted our suspect, ducking into the courtyard of the shopping center – I told Andy to drive to the other side and block the exit and got on the radio and called the office to direct the police our way. Sure enough, as we waited at the exit of the courtyard, our man came walking out, spotted us, hesitated, flashed us the black-power fist from the 70’s (Andy returned with the cowboy nod, which never fails to intimidate me), and he turned and fled. Just then a policeman pulled up behind us and we directed him into the courtyard. He took off running and we heard him holler “Stop!” I told Andy that with us blocking the north exit and Efraím coming from the south, the kid would certainly run out the open east side, so we drove that way. Sure enough, as we got to that end of the shopping center, the kid and policeman and Efraím squirted out the end just ahead of us (proving that you can run faster through a crowded shopping center than you can drive through a crowded parking lot.) The kid made it to a heavily landscaped realty office next door, losing his pursuers, so Andy and I drove into the adjoining church parking lot to make sure he didn’t come out the far side. Just then about half a dozen cop cars came rolling up, the officers jumped out and drew their pistols. Andy agreed with me that this was a good time to stay in the truck. Soon enough one of the employees at the realty office pointed out the kid hiding in the bushes and he was soon taken into custody. I called my staking engineer back from Arizona, and he found that his car’s doors and ignition had been severely damaged by a sharp instrument (turned out to be scissors borrowed from our neighboring dentist’s office) in the theft attempt. After giving our reports to the police they informed us that our thief was a 15-year-old runaway from Southern California who’d crashed a stolen car in the Virgin River Gorge (a particularly treacherous stretch of highway just south of us) that morning, and was brought up to our freeway exit by a helpful truck driver. Apparently he was still headed north and needed some new wheels when he was inadvertently foiled by our friendly over-helpful metering guys. Whew! That was a lot of excitement for our little southern Utah town.
Note: Having failed to take any photos during the pursuit of our would-be car thief, I've decided to include a photo of the nearby Leeds Arch, which we climbed up and then rappelled off of. I've got to say, I found the free-climb up the sometimes sheer cliff considerably more intimidating than 175 foot rappel down. And yes, I burned myself again on the hot figure-8 – at least it was on the arm this time and not on my neck like last time (it itched like the dickens as it healed.) If you look closely you can just make out our group at the base of the arch on the south (left) side.
