Saturday, April 10, 2010

The land of Desolation

So, Whadja do for Spring Break?

Us?  Well, the kids built a snowman, had snowball fights,
had Fights......

On Friday we went on a roadtrip with some of our friends.  They wanted to go to Topaz Mountain.
It's a place in central Utah where there is a Mother Load of minerals, and gemstones.
Not only that but there are also plentiful Trilobite fossils.

It was an awesome adventure!

                                                                   Picture found here
This is the glamorous Topaz mountain.
As you can see, it is not a tropical paradise.

     . Via here
To get there you have to drive through every tiny town in Utah, including several almost ghost towns.
Then you pass through the land of desolation.....the end of the Earth, the middle of nowhere.
The last services of any kind were in the city of Lyndyl.  Lyndyl is 50 miles from Topaz.

When you get to Topaz Mountain you turn all of your children loose with hammers,
 and other dangerous tools. 

They spend the next hour breaking rocks,
 throwing rocks,
 and rolling rocks down the mountain trying to knock each other over.

The lush scenery.
Notice, there are no Peein' trees.

We spent another couple of hours in the washes chasing the sparkle of little clear crystals.
The kids came home with buckets of "cool" rocks, and a bucket of "sparkly" dirt.
We each had a baggy of crystals,
dirty nails,
and VERY FULL Bladders!

It was a blast, and the kids are begging to go back.
Next time we are going to go down the road a little to find Geods, and Apache Tears.

What is your Family favorite WACKY vacation site?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lol No peein trees! Those sure some in handy with that many kids.... :)

Every summer we drive from Alberta to central BC through the mountains to the crystal clear lakes. We are no where near that time of year though!(and I'm sure with my 'condition' we'll be stopping roadside very frequently!)

b. said...

We used to go out there as kids and catch horny toads!
I don't think I've taken my kids out there.
We did go to Euricka today.

Melanie said...

thanks for the travel log on this destination of which I will gladly pass on!

Kathi D said...

Well, once my family went camping in Northern Arizona in February, in the snow, and we were the only ones in the campground. People stopped on the road above to take pictures of the crazy people.

Annieofbluegables said...

You were very close to my home. I have to go through Lyndyll in order to get home from my choir practice every week. I've never found Topaz Mt. so you are ahead of me.
~a