May 15

Headed to find a camp spot near the Prospector Trail in Leeds Utah.  Our first attempt was at the Red Cliffs Campground in Hurricane.  To get there we had to fit our 13′ tall RV through a 14′ tunnel.  With the surf boards up top etc we were a bid nervous, but we made it through by the skin of our side view mirrors!

The parking lot was empty and the signs were very confusing. They had parking spots for RV’s but signs everywhere saying not camping.  There was a trail head for a hike that said overnight camping only?  We deduced that you could camp there, if and only if you hike in and tent up.  We were tempted to stay since NO ONE was in the parking lot…but every once and awhile we decide to follow rules. Even ambiguous ones.

We ended up in Silver Reef, just north or Hurricane. This is by far our favorite camp spot.

 

There were tiny pullouts on the dirt road FR 032 off Old Grove Rd marked as campsites.  We found #1 and it fit the RV perfectly.

We had great 360* views from the RV and they were all amazing. Giant redrock cliffs on one side, rolling desert hills on another.  You can never get over how pretty the red sand and red cliffs are against a growing green foliage.

The kids had some fun checking out the area and exploring.

Found an old empty pipe in the middle of nowhere that they thought was too fun to play in.

Plenty of little cliffs to climb up and jump off.

So much beauty and such wacky kids.  Living in California you forget how open and free you can feel when the land is endless and full of…..nothing but earth!

May 16

Found this little guy snuggled up in our bed with us this morning.  Enjoying our views as the sun began to rise.

Brian even woke up early to catch a time lapse of the morning sun.  Watching everything go from shadowing black to different hues of blue and then ending at a blazing golden red?  You can’t make this stuff up. We were excited for our first BIG bike ride today. Brian and I have ridden Prospector and Church Rocks trails before on our regular mountain bikes. We were excited to see what a difference the ebikes would have.

Navigator Brian decided it wasn’t too far from camp to get to Prospector Trail so we decided to follow the White Reef Loop to connect into it. Problem was….we were in Silver Reef, which was a good 4 miles to get to the White Reef Loop.  We ended up getting lost a bit in a sand wash and ran into a fellow biker who helped get us back on track by calling his mom who was a trail expert.  I think we ended up following the

Along the way we found so many abandoned mines!

There were giant gaping holds in the earth covered by cross sections of re bar.  The kids had a blast throwing rocks (as usual) down the hold and never hearing it hit bottom!

The White Reef loop was a pretty rocky trail.  Lots of ups and downs and areas that you had to stay clear of because they were outlawing bikes. We made it to the connection to the Prospector Trail pretty quickly. (Odometer is about at 6 miles).

This was a trail I knew!  It goes through an open field for the most part. Slow rolling hills and fast single track sections. My favorite kind of trail. Adding to the fact that I had an ebike this time to help me charge back up the uphill sections, the adrenaline junky in me was in heaven! (Odometer is about 13 miles)

Soon we make it to the Church Rocks Trail.  This section reminds me of a mini Moab. You get to ride on the red sandstone rock for a large section of it.  The kids were getting tired about now so we stopped to climb rocks and have snacks.

Fletcher and I took a rest and threw rocks from a high cliff.  Or while he threw rocks and I admired his cute little face to death! That poor boy probably gets smothered by me.

Riley and Brian went rock hopping and exploring.  Little Riley is a mountain goat. She climbs so quick and LOVES it.  We decided to only do the upper loop of Church Rocks. It was getting hot and we were quickly getting tired.  Brian’s phone odometer said we had only gone about 6 miles, which I wasn’t so sure about.  (We later found out we were at nearly 15 miles at this point).  The bikes were getting low on battery so we decided to head back.

We following Church Rocks, back to Prospector and then the bottom loop of White Reef Loop.  On the bottom half of the last loop we ran into what looked like ruins.  As we got closer we found it was the remains of an old Hollywood movie which featured Rita Hayworth and Gary Cooper back in 1959! They Came to Cordura.

The kids had fun running through the old ruins and making discoveries.

We sat in the shade, feeling pretty exhausted from our ride.  Brian’s phone odometer showed we had only been riding about 12 miles, which seemed odd for how tired we were and how drained the batteries were on our bikes!  We both had left than 10% left so we decided to make a race back to the Maj.

We ACTUALLY had a longer way to go than we thought.  We had a few GIANT hills to climb to get back to the Maj and hills drain ebike batteries the most.  My bike was nearly dead and Brian had 3% left.  I decided to walk up the last hill with the kids while he raced as fast as he could (without Riley’s 40 lbs on his bike) to get the Maj to save us.

The kids made it up the first hill but then their poor little legs were too exhausted. So what does a mom do?  I powered up the last 3% on my bike, put both kids on it and did the best I could to get them up that hill.

We reached the top to see the Maj courageously bouncing through a very bumpy dirt road to come to our rescue!  The kids all cheered and Brian snapped this picture of the three of us racing to him, everyone exhausted!

Later we mapped out the trail and discovered we actually road over 27 miles that day, with kids on our bikes! No wonder we were all so tired after! The kids passed out, covered in dirt, in the Maj while Brian and I went looking for a body of water.

Sand Hollow has a red sand beach area for kids to swim so we headed that way.  The wind was blowing quite fierce, but none of us seemed to be bothered. We were just so excited to be in the cool water.

Perfect, exhausting, day.  Just the way we like them!