Dave and Gretta: West Desert Trip

Desert trips are a Spendlove tradition going back all the way to the 1970s. On Saturday, September 21, 2013, Dave Spendlove, Janice Moreland, and Nancy Moench led a caravan of cars filled with their families through the West Desert of Utah on an old-fashioned desert trip.

First stop was Camp Floyd, at the southern end of Salt Lake Valley. It is idyllic now, with an old stage coach inn, the relics of a commissary turned into a museum, and fields with mountains beyond.

Camp Floyd was the Army base for 2/3 of the US army from 1856 to 1859, the years just before the Civil War. The Secretary of Defense, who was from the South, was delighted to keep US troops far away in the West. The museum contained a fascinating film about Camp Floyd and the Civil War, as well as many artifacts from 1856 to 1859. We watched Charlotte's son, Jett, take a few unsteady steps.

We also toured the stagecoach inn, with period furniture from the 1860s and 1870s. Jennifer inspected the very narrow cot in a tiny bedroom and commented that her seven foot husband, Chad, couldn't fit in that room at all. I was most interested in the trunk which looked just like the one in my living room. My trunk is the one my Grandma Eyring took to Mexico in the 1880s. I also caught a sweet shot of Jett being hugged by his Grandma Janice.

I took photos of Jennifer's children, Elizabeth, who is 15, and her brother.

We followed the Pony Express Trail for miles across the desert, pausing to read the highway markers and listen as Dave related bits of history. We remembered Dave's dad, who so enjoyed being the guide on this trip.

As I looked at this stretch of desert, all shades of blue and green, I thought of a painting Dave's mom kept in her living room, created by one of her friends. It showed a blue and green desert. I thought the colors were wrong until I actually drove into Rush Valley, the subject of the painting. That valley was also settled by my ancestor, John Bennion.

Next stop was Porter Rockwell's wife's dog graveyard. That is a campy place. Dave and Nancy posed, arms around each other, with the caravan of cars snaking for hundreds of yards. The kids climbed on the walls around the graveyard, as I checked out the Pony Express marker nearby.

We followed the Pony Express Trail to Simpson Springs, another station on the Trail.

We ate lunch at Fish Springs, at the same campground where Dave's dad killed a rattlesnake so many years ago, to the deep admiration of his children and grandchildren. Nancy and Darrell brought two buckets of fried chicken for the carnivores, and there were lots of vegan treats as well--quinoa and bean salad, and the $25 selection of olives that Dave provided as our contribution, along with two big sacks of grapes. The wind howled, but we clustered in groups around the tables and enjoyed lunch, anyway.

We drove through the Fish Springs bird refuge, watching for birds resting along the national flyways, as they head south for the winter.

Next stop was the hot pots which, years ago, served as an Indian graveyard. The tribes "pickled" their deceased in the hot mineral water, and, in the old days, dead bodies could be seen bobbing up and down. I stayed with Darrell to shoot his guns, while the rest of the family hiked to the hot pots. There are now a couple of metal and ceramic bathtubs into which the hot pots drain. Joshua Moreland and Michael peeled off their clothes and jumped in. Michael shared these great pictures.