Desert Destination: The Great Basin Museum

Last week Desert Boy and I had the opportunity to visit the Great Basin Museum in Delta, Utah. It's located at 328 West 100 North. It has both an outdoor area and a covered museum.

The building used to belong to the telephone company.

Inside a sign mentions some of the displays and those who are responsible for making these exhibits possible.

One of the things that Desert Boy first had fun with was an old X-ray machine that was used at a shoe store to help size shoes. It makes you wonder what we are doing today that in 50 years we'll shake our heads about. 

Desert Boy wasn't quite tall enough to look down and see his feet, but he was still entertained.

With Desert Boy's fascination with trains, he thought the photos of trains were great. There used to be a lot of railroad tracks around Delta to reach the sugar beet fields. Alas, this was a short-lived venture, with a bad virus attacking the beets only about four years after production. Soon the museum will have a corner dedicated to a small train--something we'll have to go back to see!

Desert Boy was momentarily entertained by this display about farming.

And then he found a typewriter and started typing.

With permission and supervision! LaWanna Peterson gave us a tour of the museum, and she was super. She said she had a great-grandson Desert Boy's age, so she was very patient with his energetic ways.

She also let him sit in the seat at the dentist's office display. I'm not sure he would have enjoyed it quite so much if he had to experience some of the older dental tools, though.

A storefront display was packed with old time merchandise.

And a decorated parlor gave a taste of what life was like in the early days. There were many more displays showing life in earlier days, with a classroom, woodworking shop, hospital gurney, and more.

Another part of the museum was focused on rocks and minerals. The area around Delta (and for that matter, most of the Great Basin), is rich in rocks and minerals. They had many great examples of trilobites.

I'm always amazed at how many different minerals can be found in the area. One corner has a display where a black light can be turned on. It was really cool.

Then we headed outside. Our first stop was one of the bunkers from the Topaz Internment Camp. This "camp" was located about 13 miles from Delta and was used during World War II to house American citizens of Japanese descent.

I was overwhelmed by how many people they had living in such a small space--Topaz was the fifth largest city in Utah while it was occupied. Another day we'll go out to the Topaz site, but for now, if you'd like more information, click here.

Also outside was a variety of old equipment and machinery. Trying to imagine bouncing over the hard ground in this Conestaga wagon made me sore. 

We also got to see the inside of a pioneer cabin--a one room cabin for a family of eight. That would have been one close family!

The Great Basin Museum has something for everyone. During the summer, it's open from 10 am- 4 pm Monday through Friday, and on Saturday from 1 pm - 4 pm. Winter hours vary, and you can call 435-864-2759 to get current information.

The Great Basin Museum has plans to expand and move to main street, where visitors will be able to find it more easily. Topaz Museum and Daughters of Utah Pioneers are slated to have their own exhibit halls, while the chamber of commerce would be located near the main entrance. The museum is looking for funding to make this dream a reality. 

You can learn more about the Great Basin Museum on Facebook and at the Great Basin National Heritage Route website. 

Desert Destination: Ibex Hardpan

Located adjacent to the Ibex Crags is the Ibex Hardpan, also called the Tule Valley Hardpan. This is a dry lakebed (well, most of the time), suitable for events such as golf practice, observing the dark night sky, setting land-speed records, doing wheelies, plane fly-ins, and biking.

I took the above photo biking no-hands and not worrying where I was going. It's really fun to bike on a hardpan. 

We wanted to explore some parts of this hardpan, and a bike is a perfect way to do it without expending too much energy yet going slow enough to enjoy the scenery.

We also found a dirt road going up aways from the hardpan and took it for a bit.

We saw some more neat rock formations. But then it was time to go back to the hardpan.

Because we were in search of something unexpected...

...like water! Someone had used bulldozers to dig shallow pits on the lakebed, where the water gathered and cattle and wildlife could come and drink it. As soon as we found it, Desert Boy wanted to play in it. So we took off his shoes and pants and let him go at it.

It was slimy, with a high clay content. But that didn't stop him.

He wandered in and out of the puddles, miraculously not falling down. I say miraculous because we didn't have any extra diapers with us.

But then the cracked surface of the hardpan called to Desert Boy. The texture is fascinating, and it seems to go on almost endlessly.

He ran away from us before we had a chance to take off his helmet. We let him run as far as he wanted (after all, we had bikes and could catch up even if he decided to run forever).

Sometimes it almost looked like he was walking on air.

We also decided that the reason that aliens all seem to look like squat little beings with big green heads is that the first artist saw little toddlers running around with their green bike helmets on and didn't know what to make of them.

If you want to see what a little bobble head flapping his arms looks like, take a look at the video below. There's no soundtrack to it, so turn up your favorite music--or listen to how quiet it is out on the desert.

Desert Destination: Ibex Crags

Located in the West Desert of Utah, about an hour west of Delta, is Ibex and the Ibex crags. This area at one time was home to Jack Watson, a storekeeper who supplied sheepherders in the early part of the twentieth century and even ran a hotel for a time. Nowadays, no one lives there.

People do go and visit, though. The most common visitors are rock climbers, because the cliffs at Ibex provide some good climbing challenges.

We figured our visit would mainly be to enjoy the scenery. But I was secretly hoping I might get to climb a little too.

We set up our tent on the hard pan (aka playa) that is near the base of the cliffs. The hard pan provides a nearly perfectly level sleeping platform, albeit a little hard.

We also watched a guy practice golf. We had never thought of golfing on a hard pan, but I guess you wouldn't lose many balls.

We got out our chairs, and Desert Boy thought he was hot stuff sitting in a bumblebee chair. But he wasn't too keen on some of the other parts of camping, like going into a tent and so much darkness around him. He tossed and turned all night long.

Nevertheless, when the rays came up the next morning, I wanted to get up and photograph some of that early sunshine hitting the rocks. Ibex cliffs are made of sedimentary rock, Eureka and Watson Ranch Quartzites. That hardened sandstone just seems to glow in the morning light.

When I came back from shooting some photos, Desert Boy and my husband were awake, and after breakfast we went for a walk in the boulder field.

We even found a cool hole in one of the boulders, and Desert Boy was willing to give it a try.

After that, it was time to look for more climbing opportunities. Or more appropriately, bouldering opportunities. There are plenty of climbs at Ibex Crags, many of them described in the book Ibex and Selected Climbs of Utah's West Desert by James Garrett. I knew this wasn't the trip to try any of those climbs. But there were other possibilities...

...like this huge boulder.

I took Henry and Desert Boy over for a little fun.

Desert Boy gave climbing a try.

Then it was my turn.

Desert Boy is getting the idea.

Next time--the big cliffs!

For Desert Boy, some of the boulders were quite tall.

Finally it was time to head down.

We got to see a lizard on the way.

And then it was time for the next activity...coming in the next post!