Summer School

Summer school was held the last week of June. It was four hours every day for a large range of ages. I went for one morning to do a magic show (aka physics for kids) and stayed around to help. The attendance was really good all week, with 21 kids one day. (Out here, 21 people all together is a lot!.)

The incoming kindergarteners were very eager to check out their new classroom. (Kindergarten will be a class of 3 or 4, which is medium-sized, especially since there were no kindergarteners last year.)

Desert Girl had special permission to attend, even though she has one more year of preschool. She enjoyed her turn "reading" her journal entry for the day.

Then she got 30 seconds to bounce on the trampoline. I loved how her little pigtails flew up in the air!

Desert Girl's best friend was also able to go, and he also really enjoyed being a "big kid."

The older kids were glad to see their friends.

We really appreciate the teacher doing summer school, as it gives the kids some good mental stimulation while allowing them lots of play time.

Here's Desert Boy enjoying his time. He was a little hesitant about school at first, but he enjoyed each day. I'm still not quite used to him with his gap-toothed smile!

Of course the best part of summer school was recess!

Finally I saw someone who knew how to use this part of the playground! It was one of the new kindergarteners.

It was a good week, and we are very thankful to the patient teacher.

I asked Desert Boy yesterday if he was ready for school, and he said yes. He misses seeing his friends.

Gandy Warm Springs, Millard County, Utah

You see it as you drive north from Highway 6 and 50 near the Utah/Nevada stateline, a pointed mountain isolated from the mountains around it. This special mountain, called Spring Mountain or Gandy Mountain, harbors a fantastic cave, Crystal Ball Cave, as well as warm springs.

On this hot summer day, after a visit to the Devil's Gate slot canyon, we took refuge in Gandy Warm Springs. We came prepared with lawn chairs, life jackets, goggles, and float tubes.

The water, a tepid 80 degrees Fahrenheit (with the name Warm Springs, you always think the water should be warmer!), cascades into the pool as well as flows out of a small cave tucked under some ferns. Average flow is 9,000 gallons per minute.

Here is Desert Boy exploring the cave entrance.


Water drips constantly at the entrance, providing a unique habitat out in the desert.


The cave, Beware Cave, is not large and requires dipping your head almost underwater to get to a chamber with a higher ceiling.


It's not to be taken lightly, as a man died here in 2003, leaving behind a grieving wife and small children. If you do go, follow safe caving rules: go with other people, wear proper equipment, let someone know where you're going. The proper equipment is especially important. The gear I choose to wear in this cave: helmet, multiple lights, and goggles. The cave follows a narrow corridor back to a small room (about 10 ft wide by 15 ft long) that loops around a rock formation in the middle. You can feel the water entering the cave from the back side, and from what I've been able to find, some SCUBA divers went back into it and found that it got smaller and smaller, with no air chamber beyond. Throughout the cave it's very easy to bump your head, and the current pushes you strongly. There is some flowstone in the cave, but not too much else that's particularly scenic. In short, you're not missing much if you skip this cave. The most scenic part is right at the entrance, looking out at the rest of the spring from under the ferns.

Out in the daylight, there's plenty of fun to be had. With goggles or a mask, you can check out the native speckled dace that live in the spring. These two-inch long fish swim around the edges of the spring. Desert Girl also enjoyed picking up the non-native Melanoides shell. They are a mollusk commonly found in aquariums, and unfortunately someone dumped their aquarium into the Warm Spring, and now the non-native mollusk is taking over the habitat. That's particularly bad because Gandy Warm Springs is home to a tiny springsnail, Pyrgulopsis saxatilis, found nowhere else in the entire world. (To learn more, check out chapter 11 in my book Great Basin National Park: A Guidebook to the Park and Surrounding Area.) It's also really cool to look at the base of the waterfall through goggles.

Something else that's spectacular about Gandy Warm Springs is the diversity of dragonflies and damselflies. Here are a few that we saw:

Water is always precious in the desert, but Gandy Warm Springs provides an especially fun diversion. For directions to Gandy Warm Springs, check out the Utah GeoSight bulletin. If you go, please pick up any trash and be safe!

Devil's Gate Slot Canyon in White Pine County, Nevada

 One of the trips we recently did with our visiting family from the Midwest was to a remote slot canyon near Gandy Warm Springs in Utah, 30 miles north of the Border Inn on Highways 6 & 50. Just four miles beyond the turnoff to the warm springs is an awesome little desert treasure (see map below for how to get there). The coordinates for the canyon are approximately NAD83 11S 749773 m E 4373844 m N (You cross back into Nevada, hence the 11 S.)

We parked in the wash where the road crossed (high clearance needed), and started walking down the rather ordinary wash.

After a few twists and turns, we suddenly came to huge limestone walls. Where was this canyon going?

It looked even more daunting the closer we got.

Suddenly the floor dropped out.

We had to help the kids get down an eight-foot drop.

Then they gathered on the canyon floor, finding bird feathers, a desiccated lizard, and plenty of gravel to play in.

We had brought our lunch, and it was a welcome relief from the desert heat to eat it in the shade of the 40-foot tall canyon walls.

While we ate we admired the, water-carved walls and chatted about how this slot canyon had formed.

Desert Girl had a conversation with Dad.

Then it was time to explore the canyon. My husband and I had visited it many years ago, and I had remembered it was short, but not much else about it. I didn't remember how beautiful the canyon walls were, or how well they protected the canyon bottom from the noonday sun.

My sister-in-law managed to get the baby down into the canyon (hurray!), and he seemed to enjoy it.

The girls thought it was a wonderful place to explore. Can you tell they were being a little impish?

We went to the end of the limestone cropping and came out to a wide open wash. The kids quickly decided it was too hot and turned around and went back in the canyon.

The canyon looked different coming from the other angle.

I'm not sure what the girls were doing, but they were happy, so we were happy.

We found a bird's nest in a little crevice with an egg in it and an egg next to it.

Kids are never too young to enjoy these kind of adventures!

We hung out a little more. Because the canyon is so short, it's best to travel very slowly through it. It's a great canyon for kids because it isn't real long or difficult. If you wanted more of a challenge, you could rappel in from the top (my husband did that once when he was a teenager).

I was having lots of fun playing with one of my brother's camera lenses and a little gorilla tripod.

Finally it was time to head out to our next destination: Gandy Warm Springs (post coming soon). 

  If you're already going to Gandy Warm Springs, Devil's Gate is definitely worth a little side trip. This is off the beaten path, so let someone know where you're going and keep an eye out for flash floods, as the water could get high fast. Happy travels!

White Pine County Aquatic Center-Updated

 We have some relatives visiting, and we couldn't wait to take them to the new White Pine County Aquatic Center in Ely, Nevada, which opened just last week.

 Inside we found two pools, a 1-foot deep kids' pool and a 25-yard, six-lane lap pool from 4-feet to over 9-feet deep.

 Regular starting blocks were installed at the deep end, so here's hoping that there will soon be swim teams using these! I remember my swim team days (from age 6 to 19) with great fondness, and made many lifetime friendships with my swim team companions. The other great benefit from many hours of swim team practice was building muscle memory that I still use to this day.

In order for kids to swim in the deeper pool, they must either wear a life vest or pass a swim test. Because next to the swim blocks were a couple climbing walls that you couldn't use a life vest to climb, Desert Boy immediately wanted to do his swim test. We asked the lifeguard what he had to do, and it was swim one lap of the pool. He had recently done this in Cedar City's Aquatic Center, so he knew he could do it. He jumped in one end and started doggy paddling, but quickly turned over and started doing backstroke/float. And sure enough, he made it!

So then it was off to the rock climbing wall. He didn't get very far up his first attempts, but after awhile made it about half way up.


Of course I had to give it a try!

Back in the kiddie pool, the kids were having an excellent time. The pool had some water buckets supplied to make for some great pouring fun.

And because pouring on the side of the pool just isn't good enough:

The aquatic center also had lots of ducks, which a couple of the little girls really loved.

Don't come between a girl and her ducks!

The pool was really attended on a Saturday afternoon. 

So when can you come enjoy this watery wonderland? I couldn't find a website or Facebook page yet for the White Pine County Aquatic Center, but here are their hours for the first month:

Update: And they do have a Facebook page.

And the phone is now installed and is 775-289-7700.

Here are a few more details for the summer 2014 season:

 Don't forget that July 18th is Pirate Night. I'm sure that will be a hit!

I was pleased to see that the aquatic center will have extensive hours for open swim and lap swim, as well as swimming lessons and aquacize class and senior swim.

Go check it out! The White Pine County Aquatic Center is really nice, and we hope to be there often.