Saturday evening Micah, Kurt, Jakester and I met up at the Chevron in Lehi/Saratoga Springs/Wherever Sprawlburbia with the intention to blast out along the PET for the evening. After talking Micah out of buying some Swisher Sweets, we headed out into the light rain and made our way west.
Once we reached Cedar Fort, we decided over the CB that the weather out west wasn’t looking of hot, so we made a quick turn down one of those many straight as an arrow ranch roads that shoot south. Right off of the road was the Camp Floyd Cemetery and we decided to take a minute to look around.
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The plaque at the entrance gave a little info about the cemetery and evidence about it’s use for target practice at some point. The area cordoned off for the cemetery was quite large, but some group, perhaps BYU, had taken time relatively recently to find the actual graves.
From the looks of it, the bodies were buried rather hap hazardly. Every headstone was quite new and marked “Unknown”. At the gate there was an information sign that told who was buried there and how they died, but not which grave was who’s.
From there we continued south along the ranch road until we reached Allen’s Ranch. There Kurt wanted to head up to a place called Pink Sandstone Caves. A cave network where he had done rappelling training. The road up the the caves was steep and loose rock requiring a little 4-Low crawling.
But it was nothing for these Expo rated rigs!
Micah was hanging on Kurt’s every word!
After the caves we made our way into the mountains north of Eureka in the waning light to find a camp spot. Initially we were just going to find a nice wooded area and set up, but Kurt’s encyclopedic knowledge of generally useless mining and railroad history (unlike my completely useful knowledge of post war US-Soviet foreign relations) proved fortuitous in leading us to an abandoned railway tunnel that was perfect for setting up camp in.
After allaying Jakester’s fears of ghost trains, we entered the tunnel and proceeded to build a comfortable fire for some delicious pie iron dinners and sat around enjoying some beer and stories. Just what was needed to after a stressful work week.
The next morning we rolled out of bed, made some breaky and sat around the fire for a bit longer and then ventured out into word once more.
It was a beautiful Sunday morning as we followed the old Tintic Railroad grade towards Eureka. We made a few stops along the way, most notably at an abandoned mine shaft that Kurt decided to jump around on the rebar covering it, almost dropping his phone (which would make number 236 lost or destroyed).
Once we hit Highway 6 we worked our way towards Eureka, but decided to detour up towards the old Knightville townsite.
Not much left but the foundation of the school and a view of the tailings. But it was fun to poke around for a bit and find shards of plates, bottles and tin can’s around.
After taking copious amounts of photo’s of our vehicles, such as this future promo shot for Cruiser Outfitters, we voted Micah off the island and headed into Eureka to check out a little gun shop there called Brad’s Guns. It was a well stocked shop (though no .22lr) with a friendly proprietor who tolerated our windows shopping for a bit.
From there, Kurt, Jakester and I did some ghost towing looking for Sandtown and Lower Goshen. Unfortunately, all our efforts led to closed gates and No Trespassing sign’s. No mind, it was a good time anyway. In the process of this, though, we crossed through the intersection in Elberta with the oft-photographed Sinclair station. So we decided to play tourist and take some happy snaps.
After blocking the front of the building for awhile with our impromptu photo shoot, we headed into Santaquin for some quick grub at the Family Tree, a local greasy spoon serving up some fine cuisine. Thus ended an enjoyable, quick -n- dirty trip with some good friends.
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