Milford Mania

Every year since I was a little girl, my extended family on my Mom's side has been going down to Milford. The main point of the trip was to visit my Great Grandmother and spend some time in the desert. My Grandmother passed away last Fall, but the desert still calls our name and begs us to come and play. We always have so much fun.

Right before reaching Milford, we drive past the wind farm. It's beautiful in a sort of weird modern way. There are 97 huge windmills. Its somewhat hypnotizing to watch them turn. The energy the wind farm collects every year is equivalent to 370,000 barrels of oil.

The hotel we stay at has this awesome little 24-hour diner attached to it. It has some super good greasy-spoon type food and THE BEST CHOCOLATE SHAKE I have ever had the pleasure of eating. Seriously. It's worth the ride down there just for the chocolate shakes.
Here we are, in the car, eating treats and ready to start on our 3-hour journey to Milford:

Little M did pretty good. Those that know me personally, know that I have a serious problem with pacifiers. I just don't like them. However, I broke my no-pacifier rule for the ride down and back. M hates his carseat and nobody wants to listen to a screaming 4 month old for 3 hours straight. The pacifier helped. We arrived Friday night around 5:30pm and checked into our room. Hotel rooms are pretty high up on the list of things-that-make-my-kids-happy so they were stoked. I mean, come on - they can jump on the beds as much as they want, flip through like 2300 cartoon channels and run up and down the hall screaming. I'm sure all the other hotel guests loved us.

Cousins Brandon & Jordan, along with Uncle Rab and Aunt Dianne arrived next. My kids absolutely adore Brandon & Jordan. I don't think my kids let either one of them out of their sight the entire weekend. All C wanted to do was catch lizards with Jordan & Brandon.

Grandma & Grandpa Meow and Grandma & Grandpa Johnson arrived next.

Dub & Sweg were the last to get there. Apparently both their places of employment have yet to realize the importance of the annual Milford trip and the critical necessity of taking time off to get there. Whatev. And yep, Sweg is pulling his creeper face. Poor Dub. It must be hard living with him day after day.


Saturday morning, we made the obligatory cemetery stop to put flowers on relatives' graves and listened to my Grandpa J tell us stories of when he was a kid, growing up in Milford. This man is seriously amazing. His stories blow my mind. I am blessed to have him in my life.

Thankfully Uncle Mike & Cousin Spencer were able to drive down and made it just in time to hit up Newhouse, a little mining ghost town just outside of Milford. We used to be able to pull up right on top of a huge pile of tailings, but they have since locked us out. Lame. On that gate there was sign that was supposed to deter would-be trespassers. It said: "YOUR PICTURE HAS BEEN TAKEN," which made me laugh and did not stop any of us from crawling through the gate. So, if you see my picture on Utah's Most Wanted List for Abandoned Mine Trespassing - please notify me. Cousin Jordan promptly caught a big fat lizard:

After Newhouse we had lunch and then hit up what we have christened, the "Rocket Flats." Its basically the only place in all of Milford that doesn't have 400 mph winds ripping through it, which makes it perfect to launch rockets.

As soon as we pulled up, we spotted a gross little swampy pond FILLED with tadpoles & frogs. My kids went nuts. Cousin Jordan caught a few and soon C and F were pulling them up out of the water. The first time F caught a tadpole, he was so excited. All he could do was stutter over and over, "its soft, its soft, its soft." Grandma Meow had the insight to bring each of my kids a critter box. F filled his with tadpoles and frogs. I love these next two pictures. F can't decide if he's disgusted, enchanted or a mixture of the two.

Uncle Rab caught a blow snake soon after and C just loved it. She couldn't wait to hold it, which definitely proves the theory that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. F was a little more hesitant, but in the end we got him to hold the snake.

The Rocket Flats area is actually some type of gravel/sand pit that has really steeps sides made of sand/dirt. F took one look at the dirt and ran right for it. C and F kept really, really busy climbing the dirt wall while the rest of the group got in a little target practice.


And yes, eventually both of them fell face first into the dirt:

What was little M doing during all this? Mostly scowling at people and still not appreciating his carseat:

He was actually a great little buddy down there. He didn't fuss hardly at all. He loved seeing all the critters. He loved being passed around from relative to relative. He slept well at night. He's for sure a desert kid.

Now onto the rockets. About 5 years ago, J got the idea of bringing rockets down to Milford with us. The idea has stuck and has now become a Milford tradition. Its so much fun to see see them launch and even more fun to see the guys run after them through the sage brush. Grandma Meow gave J a six-foot rocket a few years ago for Christmas. This trip it made its maiden voyage.

We found this little buddy hiding under our car looking for some shade. Cousin Jordan gave him a drink of water and sent him on his merry way:

Rock Corral came next. It's made up of granite peaks and huge standing rocks. Oddly enough, we saw a group of about 15 wild turkeys cross the road on the way up there. I have never seen wild turkeys down there. Weird. Anyway, there are a ton of hiking trails and if you get up high enough, a ton of bat caves. C and F hiked up to the lowest one with us. It was fun, despite the stinging nettle (which none of us got into, thank goodness) and the trees covered in super sharp thorns. It is beautiful up there and really shows off the desert landscape.


Dub & Swegin were trying to get a cute picture in the mouth of this huge cave, but of course J had to be the creepy photo bomber. And C thought she heard a bat (which was really Cousin Brandon throwing a rock behind her).

We usually catch rabbits in the middle of the night by shining a spotlight into the sage brush, finding a rabbit, jumping out of the car, running towards the rabbit at full speed while screaming - but this year was a bust. We didn't catch single rabbit. And for those of you reading this and thinking that we end up hurting the rabbits - we don't. We are basically the desert cottontail advocates. We just like to see if we can catch them. Once we do, we take some goofy pictures and let the rabbits go. However, the rabbits must be getting smarter because we only saw one or two and didn't catch any. We usually catch around 10 or so. Here is a picture from a previous year's rendezvous:

However, the night was not totally uneventful. Jordan was getting a bit restless from the lack of rabbit activity, so he stuck out his hand out the window and caught a bunch of grasshoppers and proceeded to throw them in the backseat, where Dub, Swegin and I just happened to be sitting. Its totally not good to be sitting in a dark car and feel something crawling all over your legs. Dub DID NOT appreciate it. I'm getting the heebie jeebies just typing this.

And speaking of heebie jeebies - we rean into a swarm of mormon crickets. Totally uncool. They are so flipping gross. I'm not that squeamish when it comes to bugs - but these are ancient looking, totally huge and super creepy. *shudder.

On our way home we stopped in Eureka, which is THE MOST bizarre town I have ever passed through. Totally X-Files. Its a teeny tiny mining town with a ton of mines surrounding it. One abandoned mine is still uncovered, except for a criss-crossing pattern of rebar over the top of it. Its huge and over 2200 feet deep. We stopped to experience the creepiness of such a deep, dark hole in the earth. I swear to you, there has to be some seriously crazy stuff at the bottom of that thing.

Anyway, it took us a while to get home. 2 young kids + a baby = a lot of stops. However, we made it in one piece. We had a great, safe trip that my kids will remember for a long time.

You stay classy, Milford.