I live, I drive I am JEEP!

Hi there and welcome to another blog. I decided that since I have been working so much overtime, it was time to use some vacation and treat myself to a 4 day weekend. I spent yesterday changing the oil on the Jeep and mowing the grass...... being domestic I guess you could say. Today was spent out in the hills of Eureka and Jacob city. We arrived in Eureka around 11 am and went up the north end roads to see what there was to see. All of the old buildings and such have been gated off. I had to shoot this foto from across the mountain and as u can see, it is fenced in. I personally think this is bull shit but what can I do? We then went to the main mine on the east side of the town and they still allow you up to see that but that's about it. A sad note though, part of the mine dump hopper system did not survive the winter. It has collapsed and that really bites. We continued south along the edge of the mountain taking every trail we could. We found some mines they have recently sealed over and threw rocks down them. A few of them took a long time for the rocks to hit. I would really hate to fall down one of those. We went further south and up the road to Mammoth and went up and over the mountain to my favorite garbage dump. Every year new bottles appear and we got 2 on this trip. I don't think they are the 100 year old ones but they are very old. We finished by visiting both cemeteries and then headed back north to the Oquirrh mountains and Jacob city.
We went up Ophir canyon to the town and stopped in on John Skinner. He is writing the history of Jacob city and I wanted to see if the book was done. It's not. Dammit! Oh well, I asked if he had been up Dry canyon yet this year and he hadn't so I figured it was time for me to try. The road is not in very good condition and I can see why they have given it a black diamond trail rating. I have run it a bunch of times both up and down and today's trip was uneventful. The yellow Jeep had no problems and we arrived at the top in just under 20 minutes. There was snow on the trees and in some shaded areas but for the most part it was just right. That means no dust and some mud in spots. Instead of going back down Dry canyon, we took the main road and just relaxed on the way down.
When we arrived at the bottom and hit the pavement, we ran in to the boys in the foto above. There had to be nearly 20 bull elk lounging in the farmers field. I have been going up there since 1988 and I have never before seen any elk. As you can see, they are all in velvet and this guys gonna have one hell of a rack. I asked a lady who was out walking if this was common and she said every night they come down and hang out in these fields. Wow! I never knew any existed on this side of the Oquirrh's. It was getting late so we headed out to the highway and headed home. I really like days like today. I saw things I hadn't seen before and over all had a great day. I need to do this more often. Next trip, Memorial day and I'm thinking either the devils playground or Boston Terrace. Stay tuned. Jeep on my friends!