A Visit to Rock Corral Recreation Area, Milford, Utah

The kids and I wanted to go to Cedar City, so we left the afternoon before so we could go camp someplace interesting. I wasn't exactly sure where we were going to camp, but as we approached Milford with the beautiful sunlight on the granite rock of the Mineral Mountain Range, I decided that would be the place.

I had been wanting to check out The Rock Corral Recreation Area for many years, but had always just gone by this sign along Utah Highway 21 on the south side of Milford.

It was a Friday night, so we were expecting to see lots of people up there. But it turned out we didn't see anyone else! We found a nice place to camp that even included a bathroom.


The moon was rising early, so I tried to get a photo of an awesome tree in the camping area with some of the stars showing.

The next morning I woke up early and wandered around. Even though I was in flip flops, I couldn't resist scampering to the top of a ridge for this view.

We left our camping area and headed to the day-use area.

We found more amazing rocks--and no one else!

The end of the road has a nice picnic shelter. 

We took a social trail from there and went by some maple trees.


And some oaks! We don't have oaks by us, so I'm always excited to see them.


We wandered for a bit, admiring the rugged scenery.


Then we headed out and actually saw one other person! We also took a short walk out a ridge, and down in the ravine next to a spring saw a deer.


We also stumbled across a Utah Life Elevated Geocache.


There are lots of opportunities for rock climbing and rock hounding in the Mineral Mountains. We didn't come prepared, so we headed on to Cedar City, taking the scenic way across the mountains. Some cows joined us on the road.


We didn't know where we would end up, but eventually we got to a tiny town with some interesting ruins.

Our morning explorations got us to Cedar City about lunch time, where we ate at the Hong Kong Buffet, which has really good sushi. Yum, yum.

Our next stop was to the Mastermind Room Escape. Desert Boy had gone for his birthday with my husband and Desert Girl, and with some hints, they had made it out of the Ski Lodge in 65 minutes. I had made a snafu ordering the tickets, so had the ones that I had gotten on Groupon that were only valid during the open hours (meaning you might be paired with another group). The snafu meant that I had the opportunity to go too, so we signed up for the Detective's Room.


While waiting, we worked on some other puzzles.

Well, I'd like to say we were awesome detectives and got out in 39 minutes, but we didn't. We didn't get out at all. But it was fun (for the first half hour) and then a little frustrating (when we couldn't figure out clues).  Overall it was a good experience, and we learned some things about ourselves (like we need to be a lot more thorough searching).

On the way home, I snapped a photo of this wildfire that had burned right across the highway near Minersville. The retardant drops were really obvious.

It was a fun short trip, and I always enjoy checking out new things!

The Great Pumpkin Growing Contest

I saw these giant pumpkin seeds in the store and couldn't resist. Wouldn't it be fun to try and grow huge pumpkins? I posed the challenge to our local 4-H club. Who would like to participate in a pumpkin growing contest?

Desert Girl eagerly accepted. Perhaps it was because we had just listened to an audiobook, Sweet Home Alaska, that included a pumpkin-growing contest. She named her two pumpkins Laura and Almonzo, the same as the heroine in the story. Almonzo was also the name of the pumpkin in Farmer Boy.

 It didn't take long for the pumpkins to sprout. And a volunteer bean plant, too.


Then it came time to move them to the garden.


Unfortunately the insects haven't been kind. Would the pumpkin plants even make it? We weren't sure.

Fast forward a week or so, and they are growing well. We're looking forward to flowers next!

Desert Girl Helps at a Branding

It was time for another branding, and we wanted to see more. We headed down to the action, where the moms and calves had already been separated.

It didn't take long to see some action. First the roping, which included roping the head and then roping a hind leg.

Then once the calf was secured, it was time to vaccinate, ear tag, ear cut, and mark the calf.


Desert Girl wanted to take some photos. Here's one from her perspective.

And she really likes the horses, so she got lots of horse close ups.

And another.


There's so much action during a branding, that it's captivating to watch.


Of course working with such a beautiful backdrop doesn't hurt!

It's always fun to try and get some different perspectives too.

Desert Boy helped for a bit with the calf wrestling, but he took an elbow to the eye and went home early. It turned out the elbow wasn't too bad, but his allergies were, and his eyes were nearly swollen shut.

Desert Girl did better. She wanted to help, so Aunt Tana gave her lessons on the first job: loading the ear tagger. Since it contains a pesticide, she had to be careful not to touch her face.

Breanna made the calf wrestling look easy.

And back on the barrels, Desert Girl was getting the hang of her job.

She was quite serious about doing a good job. She also enjoyed it.

It's cool seeing these traditions carry on and the kids learning about them and participating.

Till next time!

Notch Peak-Tallest Limestone Cliff in North America

When we look off to the east, we see the profile of a mountain with a sharp drop. It's called Notch Peak, and it has about a 2,200 foot drop down its limestone face. Whoa!

It's a great spring or fall hike. My husband and I had done it many years ago, pre-kids. We decided it was time to take the kids and headed out there on April 22, 2018. We followed directions from Road Trip Ryan to get to the trailhead. It was definitely a 4WD/AWD road about 2 miles from the trailhead. We found three other vehicles parked there, including a couple camping. We got organized and started up the easy-to-follow trail.

We kept our eyes out for arches and saw three.

We saw lots of pinyon pine trees and Utah juniper. This tree had a lot of exposed wood and was really beautiful.

A few flowers were blooming like this phlox.

Everyone was still in good spirits with big smiles at this stage.

It was fairly warm. This western fence lizard even made an appearance.

We kept going up the canyon, and I was so excited when we started seeing bristlecone pines!

We reached a snowy patch and had to do some scrambling. Yep, this is the trail!


The kids liked munching on the snow.

Then it was time to come out of the canyon. This is where it got hot and the kids weren't having so much fun.

I stopped to wait for them and took some photos of Ibex playa to the south. We've camped there a couple of times.

And Sevier Lakebed, which had some water in it, to our surprise. It was a very calm day with nice reflections.

You can see how happy Desert Boy is.


Finally we reached the saddle, with fantastic views. My husband and the kids took a rest and then started up to the summit while I took a little detour to the north to check out more bristlecones.

These trees are great. I could easily spend a whole day up here visiting them.

Coming back to the saddle, I had a fantastic view of Notch Peak.

Down below is the narrow canyon that reaches the peak from the west side of the House Range.

I scampered up to the top.

And then I had to hold the camera over the edge for a photo. Woohoo! Base jumpers like to come to this 9,658 ft summit.

I went down the summit the other direction a bit to get another angle.

Meanwhile, at the top, this is what was happening.

That meant I had time for more photos!

Then it was time to get them up and get a family photo. It was such a nice day. We had packed layers, but it was so warm we didn't need any of them. We drank a lot of water.

Then it was time for the hike down, which was beautiful. But we were all getting a little tired. Round-trip this hike is about 7 miles, with a 2,700 foot elevation gain.

Finally we made it back to the trailhead and our vehicle. This is a really great hike, I definitely recommend it. But not on a hot day. Our high was about 75 degrees and we got toasty, even with some lingering snow. For another account and directions, check out Girl on a Hike blog.