July 26th and 27th, we went camping in Fremont Indian State Park which is in the vicinity of Beaver. We started the trip off with a lovely flat tire on the trailer. Our spare is missing, so we were kinda stuck outta luck. We had to call the next town over and have them bring us a new wheel and tire on the side of the freeway. After that, the rest of the trip was absolutely smooth sailing. Except for the time we were on top of the mountain on our ATVs and it was lightening and we thought we were going to die.
After we set up camp we took a little ATV ride to the museum. The whole area down there is set up for offroaders. There was even an ATV trail from our camp site to the museum that went up over the mountain instead of around it on the main road.
We left the museum and road over to a trail then hiked to the "Cave of 100 Hands". It sounded pretty cool.
Ummmm...it wasn't that cool. First off, there were not 100 hand prints. Secondly it wasn't really a cave, more like a sheltered indentation along a mountain wall. And some idiots had totally destroyed it with graffiti before they put bars up so you couldn't touch it. I think they should rename it "Indentation of 35 hand prints that have been graffitied over by a bunch of idiots". Because that is a far more accurate description and it was a pretty long walk to get there to see this:
Back at camp we had dinner and played games.
The next morning we woke up and got ready for a full day of riding. Addys lower lip was quivering when she told me Annie was scared to stay at camp all day by herself. So I asked Steve to make Annie a seat belt so she could come along for the ride. He made her a lovely bungee cord seat belt. I have a feeling Annie will be accompanying us on all our rides from now on.
The area we were riding in used to be a huge mining area. There are abandoned mines and miner cabins and mining equipment all over the place. Here are the kids in the entrance to an old mine. We saw so many neat things like this all along the ride.
It was a beautiful place to ride.
I was trying to take a picture of the scenic beauty and Zac rode up and yelled, "PHOTO BOMB!"
The remnants of an old fireplace
Squiggly Aspen trees
From here it seemed like we could see at least 3 states over.
This cabin belonged to a mining couple and they lived on the bottom floor with their 8 kids and their mining employees lived on the top floor.
"No wonder my shoe was bothering me, there is a huge nail stuck in it the bottom of it!"
The opening to the mine.
Zac rode up next to me and said, "Hey mom, ride like this! This is how all the cool kids are riding now!"
We stopped to eat lunch by a place called "Miners Park". We ate near a lovely stream. While we were sitting eating our lunch we noticed a deer watching us. She walked around the fence and came down by our table. I tried to feed here but she didn't want anything I had to offer. You can see the video of her coming up and sniffing the food in my hand by clicking here.
I first offered her carrots. Then lettuce. Both of which she refused. It looked like she needed a little meat on her body so in the picture above I'm offering her some turkey. Which she also refused. And Zac looked at me like I was stupid and said, "MOM! Deer don't eat meat!" My bad. So then I said something like maybe she was used to people feeding her GOOD human food and suggested maybe what she was really wanting were some of our cherry sours. So here is a picture of Addy offering her a cherry sour. It kind of looks like she might want it.
The kids had fun playing in the stream.
Aubrey and Zac were panning for gold and silver. We literally had to DRAG them out of the stream when it was time to go, they were sure they were going to find a fortune. They did find a few very tiny flakes of silver.
Then we explored Miners Park. It is a little old miners town with abandoned equipment and cabins.
Then we decided to drive over and hike to a water fall.
We hiked quite a ways and got to the overlook where we could see the water fall. But of course the kids wanted to get closer. So we hiked over some pretty treacherous ground. Addy has been taught well by her father how to climb down steep obstacles so she gave me instructions the whole way down. She did a great job ascending down this steep rocky cliff. Despite her good instructions, my graceful genes kicked in and I slid half way down this and was stopped rather abruptly when my left cheek hit a rock. It was very painful to sit for several days after that.
Yay! We made it to the second, much closer over look!
And then we looked down to find half of our children actually down at the water fall. More steep climbing! But it was worth it.
By the time we got down where the kids were they were half way up this slick mossy wall. Emily was obedient and got down when her father told her to. Zac made me take a picture first.
Making our way back to the wheelers
It was getting pretty late and we still had to get back and pack up camp and load the wheelers and make the long drive home. We were making our way along pretty fast when all of the sudden it started raining. And thundering. And lightening. We were way up on top of the mountain and the lighting was right in front of us so close. See that mountain in the distance? That is the way we came and that is the mountain we were on when we took the picture where we thought we could see 3 states over (I know, that was like 100 pictures ago). The lightning was hitting right on that mountain. The kids and I were a little nervous to say the least. Then Steve informed us we were going back a different way.
It was freezing and raining. Thankfully we came prepared.
Steve making a few minor adjustments to my helmet.
We made it safely back to camp. We cleaned up and packed up in a hurry since it was raining (except for the time Steve and Zac stopped to talk to the camp host for 30 minutes while the girls and I loaded everything)(Good thing it wasn't like 8 PM and we weren't starving because we hadn't eaten dinner and it wasn't cold or raining or anything!) We drove to the nearest town and graced the Pizza Hut with our stinky dirty presence. After we were all full we started our journey home. It wasn't long before the kids were completely out.
