Ockey Family Adventures: Headed Out West Again

It was a long, dusty drive.

Since corona virus is keeping us away from everyone else, including school, jobs, and socializing, we decided to make good on an adventure we've been dying to do for years. We headed west across 60 miles of dirt roads to visit the Fish Springs NWR. Even though it's only 60 miles, it's over two hours driving, bouncing, shaking, and coughing dust to get there. Luckily, there was plenty to see along the way.

The worst section of road was between Lehi and a tiny town called Vernon. There are 8-10 miles of road that were so filled with washboards that no speed was just right. We were almost finished before we even got started. After we passed that section, though, things were a lot better, and sometimes we were sailing along at 50+ miles per hour.

Our first stop was to see wild horses that were right along the road. The herd of around 40 was grazing on either side of the road. There were several colts that were so cute as it is early spring, and we pulled over and sat right in the middle of the herd to take pictures. It was our first exciting sighting of the day!

The wild horses were amazing!

The babies stole Mom's heart.

One of the foals was rolling on the ground. So cute!

There was a big herd of them right by the road.

Pretty little guy!

We also passed a ton of horned larks.

We made a second stop at Simpson Springs, but there wasn't much to see. We passed a bunch of trail markers for the Pony Express, since the road follows right along the old route. We also walked up the hill to a really shallow cave, but it didn't really go anywhere. We took a few pictures on the large rock at the top of the hill, though.

Simpson Springs was along the Pony Express Trail, so it was a nice historic stop.

The boys climbed this big rock.

Boys must climb. Mom doesn't always understand.

The Dugway geode beds are located right next to the refuge, so we planned a stop along the way. This turned out to be the most fun for Dax and Seth. We climbed up the soft dirt and began walking around looking for round, peach colored rocks. At first, it was difficult because we had no idea what we were looking for, but soon we figured out which type of rocks to pick up and break. Half the fun was breaking the rocks other than when Dad got sliced on his finger and Seth got hit in the head. We were grateful for sunglasses to protect our eyes from flying rock shards.

The geodes were so cool.

Dax loved finding the rocks.

Mom mostly took pictures, but she found a few little ones.

Seth loved breaking the rocks.

Mark also loved to smash the rocks.

We found so many pretty rocks.

Mark got really good at spotting them.

Seth found a bunch of geodes, too.

Can you spot the horned lizard that we found? It was our first time seeing one.

Here he is from the other side.

Fish Springs was everything we hoped for. Mark was in heaven. This is his favorite thing to do. We stopped at the Visitor Center, which wasn't open, but the bathrooms were, so we all went in to use the restroom. The ranger stepped out and talked with Dad and told us the best place to spot bitterns, and the best places to drive. We drove all over the refuge, and didn't even get to half of the roads. We were running out of times, but we saw a lot of birds. Pelicans, egrets, night herons, and we did see 3 bitterns! We walked a short trail and scared them up, so all of our pictures are of them flying. We had such a great time, and if Fish Springs wasn't 50 miles of dirt roads, we would probably visit every weekend!