Freemont Indian Museum, Cove Fort, and a brief stop at Castle Rock

I ended up getting a later start than I had meant to this morning. I got up at about 8am and did some chores my uncle had requested, seems like fair compensation for letting me bunk at his house.

On the way to Richfield I decided I should really stop and see my grandfather since I hadn't seen him for a while. He was actually home and we chatted for a bit. He's building some railing around his back patio so he won't fall off it anymore. He's a good guy but not the handiest fellow with building things so I told him I'd come back tomorrow and help him build it. Hopefully it won't take all day and I'll still have some time to do more riding, but even if it does take all day it's worth it. Gotta help out family where you can, and I know my dad would have helped him.

I left grandpa's about 1pm, definately later than I wanted to and headed south on I-70 to exit 17, Freemont Indian State Park. I've visited here before, many years back so I sorta knew what to expect. It's a small visitor center, a little bigger than the one on Antelope Island, and absent of the nasty spiders! I went in and toured the museum and took some pictures, I hope it was ok. The signs said no food or drinks, they didn't say anything about flash photography.


I think it's interesting how people used what nature gave them to make things like these baskets. It would be cool to know how to weave one of these things.











Nice moccasins. When I was younger I did some leather working and tried beading, it's rather difficult so I'm always impressed my nice beadwork.













Lame as it may seem, these beads really impressed me. They appeared perfectly circular and the holes were almost dead center on most of them. They really looked like what you can buy now days that comes out of a factory, yet they are hundreds or even thousands of years old and were made by hand!










These clay pots were really cool. I took a ceramics class in highschool and nothing I made looked nearly this nice and it wasn't for lack of trying. The Freemont Indians were very good at what they did.

Unlike the Plains Indians which were largely nomadic, the Freemont Indians were farmers and so they build more permanent shelters to withstand the extreme weathers in Utah. Here is a picture of the inside of a Pit House (I think that's what they are called). I wonder how difficult it would be to build one of these.







I exited the museum and went for a hike to see some of the rock art that the Freemont Indians had left. I ended up only seeing one piece of art due to time, but it was still a nice piece. The hike there was surprisingly pleasant. I guess the rains and wind weren't such a bad thing. At the museum the nice park ranger manning the cash register gave me a map that gives the locations and distances of various points of interest. The one I wanted to see was called the Hundred Hands Cave. According to the map it was .10 miles away from the museum. So off I went.




I came to this sign, good thing the trail is marked.



















Not far from the sign I saw a nice landscape.














Enjoying the view, I followed the trail another ten feet....


I suppose this just goes to show that life is all in how you choose to view it. If you step back a ways, it's rather a pretty view! (Ok, I know that's cheesy as can be, but it seemed to me that this was some sort of life commentary and that was the best I could come up with.)

As you can see, the trail heads down and then turns left along that road. I followed it a ways, it crosses the road, and down the embankment on the other side. I could hear running water at this time and came to this bridge.

At first I was kind of annoyed, the bridge looked old but perfectly fine. On the way back I took a second look from the other bank and decided I was glad I had chosen not to ignore the sign. There were boards busted and missing that you couldn't see from the other bank.




I found the new bridge the park sevice put up and admired the welds as I went across. Having just learned how to weld last year I am always looking at such things. I crossed the bridge and came to this sign.

Nice, gonna have to give them an A for the new bridge, but an F for their distance measurment and map making skills. Oh well, the weather was nice and there was a breeze that kept it pleasant.

Here's a bunch more pictures I snapped on the hike there.

More pretty landscape.













The trail leading up to the cave.


















There are 31 handprints in the cave. There is no info as to why these may have been here, maybe it's the handprints from everyone in the tribe at the time. It is kind of mind boggling to me to think these have been here for thousands of years!











On the way back I passed by these two benches. I don't know why but I thought it was interesting. One is obviously pretty recent, the other I'd guess is at least 20 years old.






I didn't really get to see any other rock art as it would have involved more hiking and I was running out of time. I'll definately be back down here some time in the future and will have to try and make time for some hiking.

I got back on I-70 and headed over to Cove Fort. If you are ever in the area it's an interesting place. It's a dinky little fort out in the middle of what used to be nowheresville. It's now the junction of I-70 and I-15. It was built at the request of Brigham Young as a way station for stagecoaches and the pony express. It has 12 rooms, which are actually pretty nice even by todays standards. I learned something really interesting, back when it was first built, the average man was only 5'7" tall and the average woman was 4'11" tall. What has made us so much taller, the stereoids in the beef??

Here's the fort, it was constructed of lime morter and volcanic rock. The trees are Black Locust trees, and are nearly as old as the fort itself.

I visited this fort about 13 years ago or so and one of the things I remembered was the telegraph. As my tour guides were showing me in, I commented that it was primitive text messaging ;).

I knew telegraphs ran off of electricity, but it never occured to me to wonder where that electricity came from. In our modern day we just plug our electronics in, but back then they didn't have it so easy. And no, two strings tied between trees does not make a power pole. These jars beneath the telegraph represented the primitive batteries they used back then. The big jar in the forground was filled with copper sulfate. Unfortunately that's the only chemical I remember.

When I was younger my parents had a woodshop in our garage. I learned the basics of woodworking and as such any woodworking I run into is interesting to me. I'm especially interested in really old pieces since most of it was done by hand. I don't know if this is an antique or just a reproduction, but it looked nice either way.

The lady of the house (the wife of the man who was in charge of building and running the fort) cooked using this old wood burning stove. It has two ovens ( the tour guide took special care in pointing that out, I don't know why) and she cooked all manner of food in it. I want to know how she could maintain the temperature?

Here's the dining area, it's literally next to the kithen, there was no physical wall seperating them. The walls in this place are 2 feet thick, and according to the tour guide it helped to keep it cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

The glass used in the windows is not the original but period reproductions out of Germany. From what I was told, it is poured hot into a mold and allowed to cool. This method of making glass produces a lot of imperfections, such as ripples and bubbles as you can see. I think it just adds character and some cool effects.

I think this was one of the boys rooms. I love old firearms, I'm a bit of a gun buff and always seem to find them. Interestingly, the only person ever shot at this fort was one of the sons of the builder. His brother found a pistol while the parents were away and accidently shot the younger brother in the knee. Apparently the guy who got shot lived into his 90's and got the biggest kick out of telling people he was the only one ever shot there!

You'll notice at the foot of the bed ropes coming from under the mattress. Beds used to be sprung using rope, and after a while the rope would begin to sag so you would use a special key (sorry, didn't get a picture of it) to tighten the ropes. This is where the phrase "Sleep Tight" came from.

Old style treddle sewing machine. My tour guide was a little surprised when I told him I actually understood how the thing worked. In case anyone reading this doesn't know, the operator would use their foot to pump the treddle underneath it up and down. This would, through a series of pulleys and levers, cause the sewing machine to work. I bet this thing never wore out and probably never needed servicing. Not fancy, but damn reliable, not like the crap we buy these days.

I had to take a picture of this wardrobe. This was the "closet" for the young girls living here. Each girl would have had 2 dresses, one to wear while the other was being washed. They used aprons to help keep the dresses clean. So ladies, think about that the next time you whine that you have nothing to wear!

This rocking chair is the only piece of original furniture in the fort. It was owned by the orignal lady of the house. As you can see, it's rather small, she was only 4'11".

They let me go up the stairs and check out the vantage from the roof area. Here's a pic across the road, and there's my awesome bike that brought me here!

Since the fort was built as a defensive location, there were shooting ports on all 4 walls. The ports on the sides where the residences were are on the roof.

My tour guides in the fort were really very nice and patiently let me take all the pictures I wanted. As I was exiting the fort the lady asked me if I wanted my picture taken. Honestly no, I don't really care for pictures of myself, but I'm trying to get over that so I handed her the camera. Thanks tour guides, you were awesome!

On the way to the barn sat this wagon. It was known as a "Prarie Schooner". According to the sign on it, it's half the size of a Connestoga wagon, the big wagons you always see in the movies. The sign also gave a breakdown of how much it would have cost for the wagon, oxen, food etc. It reminded me of the really old computer game Oregon Trail, only it didn't end with "You all died of Dysentary." I liked the sign better I think ;)

The barn was huge. This isn't the orginal barn but is a period reproduction. According to my new guide (the dude sitting down in the picture) the timbers were cut in northern Utah and then shipped back east where the Amish cut them how they needed to fit and then brought them back out here and assembled them. Seems like a lot of work for a period barn, but it looked really good so it must be worth it.

The framing was put together with wooden pegs. The only nails used in the entire structure I'm told was in the floor boards.

Anything horse related always makes me think of my friend Mary who trains horses (there Mary, I said friend, you happy?) How do you think Leo would like wearing one of these and pulling a wagon or a stage coach?

Here's a picture inside the ice house. The floor is covered in sawdust and I believe if there was ice in here it would also be covered in sawdust which would act as an insulator. I'm guessing they didn't drink ice water much back then.

Here's some Ox Shoes. You'll notice they come split down the middle. Unlike horses, oxen are cloven foot animals and so each foot has two "toes". I didn't know this until the guide told me, but an ox is just a cow that has been trained to pull in tandem with another cow, or team of cows. In some way's oxen made better team animals that horses because a cow can eat just about anything while a horse has a rather specialized diet. Plus, if your ox breaks down, you can always make hamburger ;)

Something else I didn't know was that unlike a horse which can balance on only 3 legs for quite a while, an ox can't. If the blacksmith tried to shoe an ox by having it lift one leg for any real length of time, the ox would collapse from its own weight. So they come up with this little devise. You'd get the ox in there and then sinch the leather straps under its belly. This would help support the ox's weight while the blacksmith worked on it's feet. I'd like to know what they did of the ox threw a shoe out on the open range?

I enjoyed my tour of Cove Fort and learned a few things I didn't know. I decided it was time to enjoy some food, so I had a couple of granola bars and some water. If anyone has suggestions of food that isn't messy, won't go bad in the heat, doesn't require cooking and isn't in a can, please let me know. Granola bars are ok, but they are very dry.

The weather looked like it was getting ready to turn so I figured I'd better head out. On the way back over the mountain I hit road construction. I am soooo tired of seeing signs that say "Loose Gravel". In a car it's a minor annoyance, maybe you get some chipped paint or a cracked windshield. On a motorcycle it can mean you will lose traction and dump your bike. This sign always makes me nervous.

I made it through the construction and up and over the summit. On the way down the cross winds were bad again, bad enough that I slowed to 65 instead of the 75mph speed limit. While listening to my music and enjoying occasional glimpes of beautiful scenery between my attempts to keep the bike on the road and in my lane I looked down and notice my speedometer was at 0.... er that's not right.

For a minute or two I worried that something had gone horribly wrong, a snapped speedo cable, the gearing finally gave up, you name it. After pondering all the worse case scenarios I leaned forward to get a better look and realize it had just come loose from the back of the speedometer... annoying but fixable. I decided to pull over and pray no one hit me while I was on the side of the road hooking up the only thing that really could tell me how much gas I had left.

Mission accomplished I hopped back on the bike and accelerated as fast as I could back up to the speed limit. I decided to chance the weather and try and get some pictures of Castle Rock. This camping area is literally across the freeway from the Freemont Indian State Park (ie Exit 17 on I-70). It has changed a lot since I was younger and camped here. It still has a lovely dirt road, and my street tires did their best to remind me they weren't made for this type of riding. I stayed upright and was grateful to see the posted speed limit was 15mph, not so fast I'd lose control or have to worry about being rear ended.

With the weather still threatening to turn wet I only snapped a couple of pictures, but I think you can see the reason it was named Castle Rock.

I left Castle Rock a little sad that I couldn't stay longer and hike around a bit. The land formations are really cool, or at least there were when I was a child

I entered the freeway again and headed back for Richfield. It sprinkled a little and the air was cool and smelled of moisture, but my luck held and there wasn't any major rain.

Here's a picture of the pet bobcat in my uncles house. Ok, so he's not really a bobcat, but he's really big. I'm guessing he has some Maine Coone in him, or else he's eating Miracle Grow. He's a really cool cat, super mellow and just LOVES to be pet. Unfortunatel he sheds like mad and so I only pet him for a little while. If Katrina reads this, he's about the size of Dude, but friendlier :)