Memorial Day Weekend 2010

This year we decided to stay close to home and go somewhere that we hadn't been. I-15 southbound is under construction, so we didn't want to head that way. So for the 2nd time this month, we headed west! We went out by Dugway to a place called Simpson Springs. Drove to Dugway and then it was 20 miles of dirt road! So, pulling our 5th wheel and our quads we headed down it. After 10 miles the road turned onto the old Pony Express Trail and that took us the final 10 miles to the campground. What should have taken 20 minutes took an hour, but it was worth it. We saw so many wild horses and antelope as we drove. When we got to our camp spot, what a view!

Thursday and Friday, the wind blew like crazy, but the sun was shining and it was beautiful. Sammy and Erica climbed EVERY tree around our camping area. And EVERY rock had to be sat on. The wind didn't deter them at all! On Friday, we all went on a long, LONG ride (48 miles round trip) to the Dugway Geode Beds to dig rocks and hopefully find some. They are some of my favorite rocks. It was the longest, straightest road I think I've ever been on. And the wind was blowing hard straight at us. When we finally got there we climbed the big hills (above) and dug for rocks. (Those pics didn't turn out....sorry.) Had a snack and then headed back to camp, thinking that the wind would be at our backs....WRONG!!! It was a west wind so was blowing into us. But, that was better than in our faces (shrug). Jake and Whit joined us late that night. They had been lost, it gets REALLY dark out there and with no cell service we were relieved when they finally got there.

Saturday there was NO wind!!! YEA!!!!!! We all loaded up on the quads and went out for another adventure. We found a really cool trail that went around the mountain where we were camped. It was so green and had a lot of great puddles to drive through. Found a really neat little spot where a house had been. The girls were very intrigued. There was somekind of a storage building that they thought was pretty cool. They asked me who had lived there. (I guess Gramas are supposed to know these things.) So, I told them that it looked like the '3 Little Pigs'. Sammy laughed, but went along with me. We decided that the house that they are standing in was they house made of bricks (mud bricks) since it was still standing. The house that Brent and Jake wandered through was the house made of straw (shrug), well it's a story. And down the road a ways we found a log house that was the house of sticks. Hey! It works! We also found a lot of lizards. (They weren't in the story, just fun to watch.) On the way back, I guess Whitney wanted to see where she had been. It was a fun day. Sunday, we kicked around, went on some short trips and then started our dinner. It's a tradition on our last night to do dutch oven. Chicken, cheese potatoes and cobbler. ReyAn makes the cobbler and does a dandy job! She decided to make 2 this time and it was a good thing. Sammy was helping and when she opened one of the cake mixes it went all over her and her mom! It was funny. That cobbler was more fruit than cake, but it was WAY good. Then it was time to clean up, pack it in and go home. We were going to stay until Monday, but we were tired, dirty and wanted to get home before the holiday traffic. It was a fun weekend, everything had gone well and then..............I fell. It sucked! Sprained my knee, cracked and bruised 2 ribs and lost all the b-b's (little round, colored balls that shoot out of an air gun) that the girls and I had been collecting all weekend. I had them in a cup and wanted to get a baggie so they wouldn't dump on the way home. Well.....they went EVERYWHERE!!!! I felt so bad. Thank you Whit for helping them collect them all back up.