Tooele County Ghost Towns

At the end of the day, Ikey told Todd: We went to ghost towns. They didn't have ghosts or anything spooky. It was just houses and buildings people left because they don't use them anymore.

As I turned off I-80 toward Dugway Proving Grounds, the first thing I saw was an empty beer can rolling across the highway. I stopped to take a picture of a sign, and heard bullets whizzing (almost) past my head from every direction. I think a lot more people head this way to do target shooting than to check out a ghost town. We had to stop for a baby pitstop a little farther down the road and the huge shadow of a bird of prey passed over us. I held onto Jovie for dear life and the bird dropped a rabbit near us. This was a weird start to the adventure.  

 

 

 
Iosepa (say Yo-see-pa) is a strange place for Hawaiians to try to live. In the late 1800's, about 50 Hawaiians were asked to set up a town in the bare desert which they did for about 30 years until they were "released" to go back to Hawaii...which they all did. I've never been to Hawaii, but I can tell you it's way better than this windy place, which was kind of pretty, but not in a Hawaiian way.

 

We drove to Skull Valley Goshute Reservation, but didn't get very far before we encountered a No Trespassing sign.

 

We looked at the flopping fish in Horseshoe Springs. Another family stopped when we did and they all put on blaze orange vests before they went for a walk. We put Isaac's orange coat on him and hoped that would save us.

 We took a little break at Bonneville Seabase to watch scuba divers swim with tropical fish and to tour a viking ship built by "the Burning Man people".

Our next stop was in Grantsville to see the museum, but it was not open, so we'll try again another day. We got directions from a nice family (including a Todd!) who discouraged us from continuing our quest to see Ophir. We were not to be dissuaded though, so we went through Rush Valley and onto Ophir. It's a funky not-quite ghost town, as people do still live there year-round. We'll come back this way and drive through Ophir Canyon to Utah County next time.

 

 

 
We stopped at Mercur Cemetary for a muddy little hike.
The kids give a tour of the Mercur Cemetary: http://youtu.be/QyTPmIvhUOQ

 Jovie picked the juniper berries off the trees and announced she was "starting a Mercur collection".

We tried to get some dinner in Eagle Mountain, but there was no food to be had as it was Sunday, so we headed home to meet up with TB who was skiing with friends today.