For Part 1, click here.
For Part 2, click here.
For Part 3, click here.
For Part 4, click here.
Sunrise
I had set the alarm for 6 am to watch the sun come up from inside my dome at Clear Sky Resorts in Cannonville, Utah. Waking up at 5:30 am, I laid in bed, trying to live wholly in the present and not think ahead to when I would have to leave in a few hours.
As it got closer to the 6:18 am sunrise, I sat on the side of the bed. It was 50 degrees in mid-May.
Having checked with my husband the night before as to which direction our dome was facing, I was surprised to find that the sky lightened without a bright shining ball slowly ascending from the horizon. A show was still put on, the receding darkness leisurely revealing the mountain, first as shadows before disclosing its true identity.
The Grounds
After breakfast at the resort’s restaurant, Sky Nova, my husband and I drove around the property. There are 62 individual domes at this Clear Sky Resort. Along with its sister property in the Grand Canyon, these are the only glass domes in the United States. Seeing them spread out across the desert canyon, they looked like a scientific research facility or a community on another planet.
The evening prior, Mister Rain had taken some photos before the 10 pm lights out policy took effect. The outline of the mountain surrounding the canyon and the secluded location once again brought to mind life out there well beyond not only Utah, but Earth.
Some domes had a deck, there were bigger domes than ours with a set of steps inside leading to a loft area with a bedroom upstairs. I want to mention that even though our dome was called the Little Dipper, it was a large space.
My husband pointed out that most of the domes had their curtains closed. “Why would you close your curtains if you’re in a dome?,” he asked and I agreed that it seemed odd.
Another question that I had voiced the day before was how do they clean the domes. “Does housekeeping drive around in a car?,” I wondered out loud. On our drive that morning, Mister Rain stopped the car abruptly.
“What’s up?,” I asked.
“I know how they clean them. They use a small utility vehicle to go from dome-to-dome.
When we returned to our dome to finish packing up to depart for the next stop on our tour of Utah, walking in the door was like entering a sauna. It was so hot it took my breath away, despite having left the air conditioning unit on while we were out.
“Now we know why everyone has their curtains closed,” my husband said as he moved to the other side of he room where the drapery remote rested on the table. In the 90 minutes we had been gone to have breakfast and explore the resort, the sun quickly and effectively turned our dome into an oven. It never got much cooler in the hour until we left for the front desk to check out.
On the front of the brochure we had been given at check-in, “Welcome To Your Dome-Away-From-Home” was printed across the top. Now I was saying goodbye. My extraordinary experience here had gone far too quickly. I have stayed in friends’ homes, airbnbs, cruise ships and just about every chain hotel you can think of, but never such a unique and special place as this.
I propose another phrase for the Clear Sky Resort’s marketing materials:
There’s No Place Like Dome
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