This trip was mostly done for my husband, he loves these kinds of things. It was our first time going to a World Extreme Rockcrawling competition. It was a three day competition, though we could only stay for two days because of living so far away and time off from work. My husband loved it and now wants to build his own to compete in it. We stayed in Vegas at the Stratosphere. It was interesting to watch, as there were a lot of the crawlers tipping over and stuff. The cool part is that no one was getting hurt. Maybe one day I'll compete in one.

The fireplace of the old General Store.

Located high in Mill Canyon on the side of Gold Mountain in the Tushar Mountains is the ghost town of Kimberly. Since it is high up in the mountains the best time to visit is in the late spring to early fall. Kimberly was formerly a Gold Mining town. Originally settled in the 1890s, it lasted until 1910. Kimberly had a minor rebirth in the 1930s, but has been uninhabited since about 1938. The town is perhaps best known as the birthplace of Ivy Baker Priest, a former United States Treasurer. There isn't much left of the ghost town anymore as, the buildings are gone except for the old boarding house and the mill. The scenery is spectacular and the air spells of pine. Though you do need to be careful as there are bears around. The town was divided up into two sections, Upper Kimberly which is mostly where the residents lived, and Lower Kimberly which was where the businesses were. Lower Kimberly's main street bent around the head of the canyon in a horseshoe shape. Kimberly quickly became the leading gold camp in the state, with two hotels, two stores, three saloons, and two newspapers. In 1900 the county formed the Gold Mountain School District, and a log schoolhouse was built. Enrollment peaked at 89 in 1903. Kimberly's school year was just the opposite of the North American norm: children attended school from April through November to avoid the deep snows of winter.

^{By 1902 the Annie Laurie Mine employed 300 miners and Kimberly's population reached 500. The steep canyon road was constantly filled with wagons carrying ore, bullion and supplies to and from the railroad station at in the town of Sevier. The heavy traffic kept the road passable through the winter time.}

Like most mining camps, Kimberly was known as a wild and vice-ridden place. Its brothels were famous, and drunkenness was commonplace. The town had problems with violence, even murder. The two-cell jail was said to be the strongest within 100 miles, which is now located in Pioneer Village at Lagoon.

Arches National Park is located a few miles outside of Moab, Utah. The best time to visit this park is in early spring and early fall, as it gets really hot down there.

There are areas where you can have a picnic and enjoy some amazing views. You can hike up to the delicate arch, but I do recommend that you have tons of water and a camera. It is a long hike about two to three hours.

There is also a broken arch that is interesting to see. There are also tons of lizards hiding and playing on the rocks. Plus there are rabbits around to, though they are still really skittish of people. Whereas the lizards don't seem to be unless you try to pick them up, then they run.

There is also a slot canyon that you can walk into and it opens up into a little clearing of sand. It is a great place to have your kids play and rest for a few minutes.

A view from the petrified sand dunes.


Snow Canyon State Park, is located by St. George Utah. It is only about five dollars to get in and the views in the park are awesome. There are tons of picture opportunities and things to see. There is sand that you can play in, and picnic in. You just have to make sure that you have to take your trash out with you.

There are lots of trails to go hiking on. As you go hiking you will see lava rocks mixed in with the red sand. You can also go hiking down to some of the lava tubs and go in one of them. It is pretty fun to go down in them.

There are also petrified sand dunes that you can hike on. The view is also amazing from the dunes. About two miles outside of the park are two cylinder cone volcanoes. You can distinctly see the shape of them. The two volcanoes are not extinct and erupted last about ten to twenty thousand years ago.