Robin and I take a drive to the town of Springdale, which is literally at the entrance to Zion National Park, about once a month to have lunch and to just take in the beauty of the drive and obviously of the destination itself. Springdale is about an hour’s drive from our home and it’s a ‘tourist town’ in every sense, it is filled with restaurants, coffee bars, souvenir shops, hotels and boutiques (although not a single ‘chain eatery’ other than a lone Subway sandwich shop that sued the crap out of the town until it finally relented and let them open).
But just before one gets to Springdale, one passes through the really cool little Utah town of Rockville, population 245. There couldn’t be a more aptly named town in the world, as Rockville sits at the base of some pretty high cliffs that over the years deposited hundreds of giant boulders into the town below. People who live on the cliff side of the road that bisects the town are literally gambling with their lives and their property that a ginormous boulder will not come rolling down and destroy said lives and property. Tragically, it happened most recently about five years ago. A home at the base of the cliff was flattened by a boulder and the couple inside were killed while they slept in their bed.
But, on a cheerier note, Rockville is situated between the cliffs on one side and the Virgin River on the other and is home to a really neat old bridge called, wait for it, the Rockville Bridge. Who knew? So, the Rockville Bridge spans the Virgin River, is nearly 100 years old and was just recently restored and reopened for use by the general public.It is a one lane bridge, which about 99% of the time is not going to be an issue in the metropolis of Rockville. And more importantly, the bridge allows for travel to the ghost town of Grafton that sits on the other side of the river.
The ghost town of Grafton is not what most people would expect a ghost town to look like according to your basic Hollywood western, there’s no Main Street with a saloon, sheriff’s office, undertaker, or barber shop. It’s a lot more ‘Little House on the Prairie’ like, with emphasis on prairie. But having said that, one of Grafton’s claims to fame is that it was the setting for one of the most iconic scenes in movie history. The scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where Paul Newman gives Katherine Ross a ride on his bike was filmed in Grafton in 1968 to the song Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head. For those who have no idea what a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is, here’s a link: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=803524560139227.
Robin and I spent about 45 minutes wandering around Grafton. It’s amazing to see how and where people lived 150 years ago. The homes were clustered together in a fairly small area for protection from Indians (I know, Native Americans, but in 1860 they were Indians), who were not at all pleased to have 160 or so white people living on what they considered to be their land. And sure ’nuff, some of the nice citizens of Grafton were killed by the Indians, but we all know that there were very fine people on both sides. 
Anyway, it was a very cool experience and I recommend it to anyone that visits Zion by way of Route 9 to Springdale. It’s a self guided tour, it’s free and it will take an hour in total, max. Although, I do not recommend driving a BMW sedan to Grafton, which I discovered the hard way. But the M5 survived the 2-mile dirt road (each way) and we made it to lunch in Springdale for delicious barbecue at Jacks Sports Grille, which I also highly recommend.
