Searching for Swirly Rocks

Vivian and I have slowly been emerging from our ailments.  I was afflicted with a terrible sinus infection, like nothing I've ever experienced.  Thankfully, but unfortunately, Sarah has already been down that road, so she was able to advise me to rush out (I actually sent Justin out) to purchase an item known as a Sinugator that shoots water up your nose.  I was desperate for relief, but it sounded terrible.  The alternative to this was to attempt this netty pot business, and that just sounded too much like waterboarding myself.  I was skeptical that shooting water up into my sinuses would solve anything, but here I am, days later, still breathing, and I seem to be well on the road to recovery.  As for Vivian, three doctor's appointments (although one of them was something of a waste of time) and three prescriptions later, she is back to her usual routine of high volume trashing of our household.

After days of sitting around in this apartment feeling terrible, yesterday the walls started to feel like they were closing in on me.  I told Justin that we had to get out and do something.  Anything.  We spent half the day trying to figure out what to do, and finally decided to go to an obscure Utah location to secure for ourselves some swirly looking rocks that we saw online.

It wasn't Justin's first idea of a good time, but he decided it was better than the alternative of staying at home and doing nothing.  So we set off on our little trip.

To say this was a little off the beaten path would be an understatement.  It was about a 90 minute drive, and far enough out into the middle of nowhere that every time we saw another car I found myself wondering what they heck that other person was doing all the way out there.  For some time we traveled along an unmarked dirt road that Justin was entirely uncertain was actually the road we were supposed to be on.  We were reassured that it was when we came across this:

We still have no idea why this antelope wasn't spooked off right away.  Maybe it was reluctant to give up the shade?

A marker for the Pony Express trail

Justin had read that the road was part of the old Pony Express route.  Assured that we weren't totally of course we forged ahead to the community of Faust, Utah.  The only thing we saw there that was really noteworthy was yet another pony express monument.  

The Faust Monument

After that our drive took us back to a dirt road, and all was going well until we hit a place that seemed a bit muddy.  We weren't feeling super confident about our ability to traverse the mud pit, but Justin decided to venture in and test it out.  We made it maybe 5 feet in, which was not even a quarter of the way, and felt the car starting to bog down.  He put the car in reverse, and after a few seconds of uselessly spinning the tires and flinging up blobs of mud everywhere the car regained traction enough to back out of the mud pit.  We were driving the Honda Accord, and looking at the brush and such growing on either side of the road it seemed that our quest for the swirly rocks was going to meet an abrupt end.  Justin got out of the car and decided to walk into the mud pit to see if another area was more stable.  I sat in the car and watched him walk out on a portion that seemed a little dryer.  He made it a few feet out and then I saw him start to slip.  He turned around and we both shook our heads at each other.  No way were we going to get ourselves trapped in a mud pit, of all things, in the middle of a blazing hot day in literally, nowhere Utah.  

Justin got back in the car, put it in reverse, and we started backing out the narrow dirt road.  We just weren't quite ready to give up.  He stopped the car, and asked me if I'd be willing to leave the car and hike in the rest of the way.  This was an easy answer, since I had already been contemplating posing the same question to him.  So he again put the car in drive and we started back down the dirt road, when I spotted what looked like a...how would I describe this?  Not a dirt road, but more of a path through the grass and brush that was worn out by other vehicles.  It appeared to go around the mud pit.  I got out and walked in front of the car along the path to make sure we weren't going to run across some kind of crazy boulder or hidden rut.  All the while I was wondering why we bothered to buy an SUV so that we could then attempt this kind of thing in a sedan.  I kicked myself even harder for leaving the CRV at home when we arrived at the end of the path and basically held my breath/prayed that we didn't lose the oil pan while Justin slowly inched over the drop off back onto the road.  The oil pan is fine, it sounded like we almost lost the back bumper, but it miraculously remained firmly attached to the rest of the vehicle and we continued on our way a few miles away to the swirly rocks.  

The final destination.  Vivian was very uncertain about this whole thing.

We felt like we had just gotten out and congratulated ourselves on actually making it to our destination when we were joined by a rather redneck looking family that made weirdly quick work of gathering a bag of rocks and disappearing again.  The father did take time to tell us how lucky we are that we didn't get stuck in the mud.  He said that his first time out here (apparently he's a regular) he attempted to get through the mud pit in his truck, and almost didn't make it.  He said it's even softer and deeper than it looks.  So on second thought maybe I'm glad we didn't drive the SUV.  I like to think that we wouldn't have tried to traverse the mud pit even in the other car, but the all wheel drive may have left us with a false sense of confidence.  Either way, we didn't get stuck, and that's what counts.  We hung out there for an hour or so, collected a pile of rocks and then headed back.  Getting back on the path still looked risky.  We stopped and using my entrenching tool that I'd thrown in the car at the last minute, Justin piled up a little more dirt in the drop off and we made it back on and off the path again without issue.  Although I still was ready to chew my nails off standing outside of the car and watching to make sure it had clearance.  It was very close.  

This is a sample of what we have to show for our efforts: 

I'm not sure the picture does them justice.  The colors are quite bright.

We took the long route home, or rather the longer route home, and wound up back in the neighborhood several hours later, sorry to be back in the city so soon.  Still not quite ready to face the apartment again, we went on a bit of a fruitless mission looking for 4th of July t-shirts for the family (sold out at all locations we tried), and then wound up at an REI where we had the odd experience of actually repelling all their sales people.  I'm not sure if we just looked poor, or what, but after multiple attempts of trying to approach someone, only to see them turn and rush off in the other direction, or immediately engage another customer...seriously, we must have looked homeless or something, we gave up and returned home.  

This little outing has me feeling kind of hyped up about finally getting back to being healthy enough to get out and enjoy summer!