Fun Friday - to the North.

Most of our Fun Friday adventures will take us to the southern end of San Juan County. But there are two locations that were actually to the north, toward Moab, so we decided to hit those in one shot. First we went to the Hole in the Rock.







It is a 5000 square foot home that was carved into a big sandstone rock in the 50's and 60's. It was all done by hand drills and dynamite and hauled out by the guy and his donkey. It is actually a pretty cool thing to see. It stays between 65-72 degrees year round, and actually has a good amount of natural lighting in it, so it doesn't seem dark and cave-like.



 

You are no longer aloud to take photos inside the house, but I got this one from their website that gives you some idea of what it looks like inside. Go HERE to see more photos. And did I mention that the guy did taxidermy? Well he did, (poorly) In this shot if you look closely you can see two wild mustangs as well as Harry, the donkey who helped him haul out the rock. Poor Harry has actually lost most of his hair, and his nose is starting to cave in. I love him anyway. I used to work here as a tour guide when I was in high school, and it was always an adventure. I have hours worth of stories about the people who came through, the stupid questions I was asked, and the pranks the workers pulled on each other. It was actually a pretty fun time. But, since I worked there, the owner let me take my kids back through the house myself. It was kind of fun to show them around the place. It totally impressed them that I had worked there, and knew all about it. (Glad it's impressive to someone...) It still looks EXACTLY the same as it did almost 12 years ago when I last went there.

 One thing that has changed is the outside. The summer before I left for college the son of the people who built it sold it to some other people, and the new owners have gone all out making the grounds look really interesting. They also put in a petting zoo, so of course we had to buy a bucket of food and take a look at the animals.

Most of the animals can eat right out of your hand. This camel is super nice. If you hold a carrot in your mouth he will eat it, and if you take a picture at just the right time it looks like you are kissing. Unfortunately I was the only one brave enough (gross enough) to try it, and my kids were so busy watching in horror that they kept forgetting to snap the picture. I did it 4 times and we never ended up with a good shot. Oh well, I've kissed worse, so it wasn't really that special:)

There is a fee to tour the house and to see the zoo, but there is plenty to see on the grounds as well, and that is all free. 

Next we continued on to dead horse point. It is a pretty good little drive. The turn off is about 5 -ish minutes north of Moab, and then 20 minutes more to the point, but the road is good and the scenery is pretty, so it isn't bad. It's a state park, so there is a fee to get in, but we had our free park pass from the library, so it didn't cost us a thing.

 Before you actually get the Dead Horse Point, there is a visitor's center that tells you fascinating things about the are, then there is a paved path where you can hike around and look at the beautiful views. One super nice man offered to take a picture of the three of us together. That really is the nicest thing someone could offer me at a tourist attraction. I take tons of pictures everywhere we go, but I'm never in any of them, and I worry that some day my kids will look through our photos at all the adventures we have and not remember that I was there. I think I scared him off with my sincerity when thanking him though. We saw him a few more times while in the park and he seemed to kind of be avoiding us. :)

 When we were finished there we drove over to the point. It is a big round area high on the top of the mesa. There is a narrow stretch of land leading out onto it, and the rest of the edges are sheer cliffs down. The legend is that when there were herds of wild horses wandering the area (the visitor's center says that there aren't anymore, but that isn't actually true because I have seen some a few different times when working with my dad, and when hiking) the cowboys used to round them up on this point because it was such a steep drop off on all but one side, so all they had to do was make a makeshift fence to put across the entrance and the horses were corralled. The story I was told growing up is that one time the cowboys left the horses up there for too long, and the horses plunged to their death while trying to get to the river below. The visitor's center says that the horses died of thirst on top. I don't know what, or if any of that is true, but it's an interesting story that caught my kid's attention.

After that we were planning on going back to Moab to the pool, but after all the hiking my kids were beat so they opted to save that for another day. Instead we got ice cream, got an oil change, and went to Grandma's house for a visit. And that was it for the first Fun Friday of the 2012 summer season.