Going.......Going.........

Hi and welcome back. I decided to take an afternoon adventure today to just get out of the city and play. The chosen destination for today was two fold. The Spiral Jetty and Promontory Point. We hit the point 1st and lo and behold , the trains were out. It used to be they put them away right after Memorial day, but not anymore. The new date is October 10Th! We took some fotos of the trains in the sun then headed south to the Jetty. As you can see its slowly going away. This is a good thing in my book because I think it is so much prettier when it is encrusted with salt. My opinion....... you can decide for yourself.
As you can see, the Jeep found some mud. I really don't know how it does it, but it seems to know where the mud is and its out of my control. I just sit back and enjoy the ride. Today was the one time I was glad that they have "subaru'ed" the road. Yes there were cars out there but it made it possible to return to Promontory in time for the train run. I sure enjoy hauling ass on dirt roads. In fact, I would love to have a chance to race in the Baja 1000. I wouldn't even care if I won. Just the chance to do it.
This is the 119 from the Union Pacific. It was built in 1979 in California almost to the original specs. It is a very beautiful locomotive and burns coal like the original. I learned something new today I had never noticed. When you go out there to see the trains,the Union Pacific is on the north and the Central is on the south. In between the trains is a replica of the Laurel wood tie where the golden spike was driven.
If you look under the 119 , you will notice that the ties are rough cut by what appears to be axes. Look south under the Jupiter, and you find precision cut ties made in sawmills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. In the 30 years or so I have been going out there I had never noticed this. I also learned that the wood burning Jupiter would last 20 to 30 miles on a full load of wood before having to stop and add more to the tender. The 119 burned coal and could go almost 100 miles before needing to refill its tender. Interesting fact. But, both could only go around 15 to 25 miles before needing water! Ok, enough history for today. Enjoy your fall weather while you can cuz I'm predicting a very long, hard winter my friends. Jeep on and enjoy the ride!

The last hurrah?

Today was the last trip..........in summer mode. It seems that Fall is trying to kick summers ass out the door and succeeding, So I figured I would take one last topless jaunt into the woods. The trip started cold with rain and hell..... yes hell! My blog, my choice. By the time we reached Salt Lake, Mr sun had appeared and began to warm up the day. Just for shits and giggles, I did drain 2" of water out of the Jeep before we left. We hit Stockton and took the power line trail across to dry canyon to begin our trip to Jacob City. There was plenty of mud and and loose rock but Old Yellow didn't miss a beat. We arrived at the bottom of the town and entered an open mine there. As you can see it was gated but someone cut a hole in it. Thank you whoever you are.
An interesting site that is starting to appear in the old mines is the formation of stalactites. These little guys have been forming for over 100 years and they are still just tiny. I wish I could have gotten into my favorite mine. It had bigger ones back in the late 90's so I am sure they are at least 4" now..ha ha ha. There were a few in this here mine and this one turned out the best foto wise. Kinda hard to shoot fotos in pitch freaking black darkness. But..... as you can tell I did have my camera and flashlights so I was prepared. This particular mine still had the mine cart tracks in it and who knows what else!
I did have to laugh at someones art work. It appears that there has been some deep exploration in this mine and someone made sure they knew the way back. The total darkness in a mine is or could be quite a frightening experience. I can only imagine how the miners from this mines time period used candles. Be a scary thing to have your candle blow out.....
After exiting the mine we snooped around and Kurt wandered off to see what I have seen many times over. I was staring at the ground looking for whatever and look what I found! Is it gold? I'm sorry to say no, its not. We stopped at an historian that lives in Ophir and he declared it Pyrite with Lead and Silver. Cool beans! I again asked him if his books are finished and again the answer was no. The wait is killing me. I am a history buff when it comes to mines, ghost towns and the American West. To end, a poem

I'm a Jeeper, and I'm always revving up

I'm a Jeeper, I can never get enough

I'm a Jeeper, it's something in my blood

I'm a Jeeper, wouldn't change it if I could!

Jeep on my friends!

Deja vu or I almost did it again!

Deja vu was running thru my mind as this adventure progressed thru the day, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. We left the house bright and early and headed south to lake point to meet up with Sam and Bob. We met at McDonald's and chowed down on some great food (yes I love it) and then continued on south to the Tintic mining district. Today's trip was a completely new one. This area we were headed to was virgin territory for us, so we had high hopes on finding some new things. The GPS indicated we were in the mine area so we began to explore. Our first find was this mining camp with the stone cabin. Tho it is falling apart , you can still see it had some quality workmanship in its design. Easily 100 years old you could still use it to get out of a storm if you had to. As usual, the trails were ATV in size, but you know me.... who cares!

Besides the mines, we also had a goal of finding the infamous Chicken Rock of Utah. The GPS showed us the way and there is it. Now why in the hell it is called Chicken Rock I cannot say. I saw one area that could have looked like a chicken head, but who knows. I have to admit that I am a wee bit baffled. Its here that the deja vu took place. On the left side of the foto is a trail that goes right to the base of it. Its not a very nice trail so I don't recommend this one to any one unless you have an ATV. The foto is taken from the eastern trail which isn't much better but you can get a jeep up it fairly easy. On the top of the trail, we got out, looked around, took fotos, used the GPS to see where to go next and this is where we had our deja vu. We headed down the mountain and got back to Bob's truck when I realized I didn't have the GPS. Sound familiar? Yes I had sat in on the jeep AGAIN, and driven off. Damn it! This is getting to be a bad habit. So, we flipped a u-turn and headed back up the trail. I had figured it would be found on the top where we had stopped. Wrong! As we headed up the steep part of the trail, I just happened to have my head out of the Jeep and wow....... I spotted it. Talk about a lucky find. I wouldn't have guessed it would have made it that far down the trail. YAY! I don't have to buy another one. The sky was turning black by now so we headed out of the new area and decided to go over to Eureka and search for bottles in the mine dump I had discovered. As we headed up the trail to the dump, it started to rain really hard. We found a part of the trail where the trees hang over and stopped and ate lunch. The rain let up after a while so we continued on to the dump. It is a little late in the season to find anything but we looked anyways. No luck today on finds. Found a ton of broken ones but nothing to write about. Laura did find a suspender clip that we have dated to the early 1900's. Its in great shape and kind of a cool find. I found some beautiful pieces of broken glass that I wish I could have found complete. Love the purple bottles that used to be common in America.
The last 2 fotos are shots of friends we found along the way. The lizard shot was tough because he blended in so well with the wood. The baby bunny on the other hand stood nice and still for the foto and we thanked him by tossing him some food...... which scared him and he ran away. We also saw tons of deer, none of which would stand still long enough to be fotographed. Damn them. oh well. The trip was great and I will have to return some day so I can discover more secrets of the area. Until then my friends......... Jeep on!

July 3rd...... a special Jeep day

Welcome to another adventure! I really shouldn't have gone today due to some fuel line issues but..... what the hell! When its your daughters birthday and she wants to go.... you go! We headed up the public access or as I like to call it the back door to La Plata. With all the snow this year I had my doubts as to whether we would make it, but we had to try. The trail was in bad shape from the get go but the Jeep and the Dodge didn't have any problems............yet.
As you can see, there is still snow where the sun shines all day so I knew we were in for an adventure. All the mud holes were passable till we got to the 2ND to the last set. This is a year round spring and with all the melting snow , it was not looking good. The trail is barely wide enough due to the thick trees and the mud holes were deep. I was leading and started into it about 40 yards when we went around the corner and saw it was impassable. We slammed on the brakes, did a quick oh shit, and slammed it into reverse. The little yellow Jeep powered thru the goo and we made it back to dry land. As we set there talking, we discovered another huge problem. We were attacked by the biggest damn mosquitoes I have seen. The talk ended very quick and we headed out of the area and back down the mountain. No snow for us today.
Bob had blasted this on the way up and had to do it again on the way down. I sooooo wanted to but with open lines to my gas tank I chose not to, this time. Good news is the parts are ordered and will be here next week so I'll be ready to try it myself soon. As I have said before, gotta love a daughter who loves to Jeep. We had a blast and I hope this becomes a tradition. Happy birthday Sam.... you are the greatest! Jeep on my friends!

New beginings

well I am finaly back on track. My old Dell took a huge shit and I lost everything. All my music and fotos are history. Talk about sucking the proverbial donkey dick. So all my posts now will all be made from my new laptop. There are no fotos to post today due to the fact I have none. I will over come this snafu and we will move forward. So, until my next adventure.....Jeep on!

Damn the tree hugging Subaru drivers!

Happy Mothers day to all you mothers out there and welcome to adventure number 2 of the year. After a beautiful 75 degree day yesterday, today dawned cool and rainy. But, as you all know, I never let a little rain get in the way of an adventure. The original plan was Gold Hill, then Boston Terrace, but due to circumstances beyond my control, we ended up out at the Spiral Jetty. I had heard rumors that the general public, you know them, the Subaru drivers, had complained that access to the Jetty was not made for cars. You could drive out and get to maybe a mile away and hike the rest. Not any more. The government, not sure whether it is state or federal, decided to make it a trail even mini vans could drive. So, like the majority of the trails up Logan canyon, anything can drive out to the Jetty. Assholes! I can think of quite a few projects the money could have been better spent on. Oh well, what do I know? As you can see, with all the rain and snow we have been getting the Jetty is now surrounded by water. I am betting that by the end of June, it will be covered again. I personally cant wait. It is sooooo much prettier covered in salt then it is as the black rock it is.

Years ago, some company decided to look for oil and drilled out there by the Jetty. They built a few dikes and some access roads out into the lake and generally made a mess. I can't tell you what these pilings were for, but they are still there rotting away in the salty environment. They are interesting to look at but that's about it. Just to the south you can see where they poured some type of tar mixture into the lake. What makes it cool is that there are things stuck into the mess. It almost appears, to me, that in the hot summer months, the stuff will actually melt. Case in point is a bottle stuck in it. It couldn't have been there since they dumped it. Someone would have had to come along and seen it and smashed it. Just my opinion.

Anyway, on the way back, we ran across the semi-wild herd of horses that lives out there. It was kinda cool that they were so close to the road. As you can see, they added 2 new members to the herd. They weren't very friendly and began to head away from us when we stopped to take the foto. The fotos are not very good this time cuz all I took was my cell phone. Didn't want to get the good cameras wet. Well, enough for this time. Jeep on my friends!

'Bout damn time!

2011 has been here for almost 4 months, and I finally made it out to the hills. There is an interesting thing that is happening at the moment, it seems that winter refuses to let go and cede the game to spring. I read online today that Alta, a local ski resort, still has 200 inches of snow on the ground. What the hell? So, I decided to head to the hills and Jeep the darkside and see how high up the mountain I could go. I headed out to the Oquirrh mountains and decided to try Dry canyon. Its not a difficult trail but it does take patience. I got up about 1/2 mile before I ran into boulders blocking the trail. I moved a few but then they got bigger so I gave up! Oh well, I tried. The above foto is at a mine site and if you look down the canyon across the valley you can see a snow storm out there. Yes, it snowed off and on all day.

In the valley below the canyon a few mine relics still can be found. This one has been around a long time and its still in ok condition. Who knows how much ore passed thru the chute during its lifetime?

Last stop was up Ophir canyon and the trails that are up there. First one taken was snowed in after maybe 500 yards. The second one faces west so it was open a lot further up but its your typical atv trail so I finally picked a spot where I could turn around and headed back down. Ophir seems to be gearing up for some type of tourist place. I'm seeing things I haven't seen before and this building above appears to be the old school . I peeked in the windows and they are restoring it to its glory from years gone by. Ophir is a town where you have 100+ year old homes next to modern ....... dare I say mansions? One owner is trying to sell a newer house and is dropping the price $1000 every week. Not a bad looking house.......but my hell..... the price for this week.... $299,950.00. Its nice, but not that nice. Plus its on the wrong side of the road. A lot of the houses on the north and extreme south side have their own personal mines they can play in if they choose. Now, if I could afford one of those homes, I'd buy it in a minute. Off I go.... Jeep on my friends.