When I was little and we would visit my grandparents in Kanab, it seems like we did a lot of wandering around. We visited lots of places in Utah many times. One of the thing I remember liking was going to ghost towns. So on the way home we stopped by one. It wasn't as cool as the ones I remember, but it was still fine. It was Silver Reef. This town mined about 25 million dollars of silver ore. Pretty cool that places like this used to exist. They had about 200 people living there at it's height. 
And old wagon along the road. 
This is the pioneer cemetary at Silver Reef. None of the wood markers have any names on them. There were a few stone ones dating back to about 1880. Most of those ones were either babies or children. It really made me think about how blessed we are to have all our children still with us. I can't even imagine what it would be like to have to bury one of our children. But the pioneers were strong people. They knew what they believed in and they stuck with that. I'm sure they still had struggles and many hard times and I'm sure burying those little one wasn't easy. But we are so blessed to have the gospel in our lives and to know that families are forever. I know with out a doubt that heaven would not be heaven without being surrounded by family. It's wonderful to know that death really isn't goodbye forever. It's just a waiting period until we meet again.
Our nest stop on the way home was Cove Fort. All I can say is, "Amazing!" I couldn't live like they did so long ago. The picture above is on the inside of the fort. They have 12 rooms in the fort. 6 on the north and 6 on the south. The south side was for work and the north was bedrooms. 
This is the telegraph room. You can see the telegraph machine they used to transmit messages. They told us they had to have someone every 30 miles to send messages from place to place. 
Here is the dining room. It cost 35 cents to eat dinner here. Mrs. Hinckley cooked 10-12 5 lbs loaves of bread everyday. They travelers who stayed over night here got to eat in this room with the Hinckley family. They always said a prayer before eating, even with non-member visitors. 
Here is the kitchen. It's amazing to me how good of a kitchen it seems to be. While it is nothing like what we have these days, I look at it a think it would be worth knowing how to cook in this kind of a kitchen. I actually really thought it was amazing.
Here is the washroom. Unlike the kitchen... I would not want to have to do this. Maybe it's because I love to cook and hate to clean. I would not want to have to make my own soap from fat and stuff (the soap is in the yellowish container on the left). 
Here is the Hinckley boy's bedroom. They traded with Indians, so each bed had a blanket on it. This room had the entrance to the cellar. I really would have liked to go in it. I also would have liked to try out one of the beds. I'm not sure how I would like sleeping on straw with ropes underneath.
This is the room Brigham Young would sleep in when he traveled south and then back north. It was probably the nicest bedroom of them all. There were two other bedroom for travelers. One for girls and one for boys. To sleep on a bed it cost 12 cents a night for half of the bed. Many travelers would go to bed alone and wake up next to a stranger. They didn't say if it cost to sleep on the floor.
And here we are in the entrance as we were leaving. The wall are 18 ft high. The walls are made from lava rock and limestone mortar. The wall are 6 ft thick at the bottom and 2 ft thick at the bottom. They had holes in the walls to stick out guns if needed, but they were very blessed to never have been attacked. In fact the only one who was ever shot there was on of the Hinckley boys and he was accidentally shot in the knee by his brother. And that's the end!
Here we are on the night we got to the condo. Thanks so much Winterton's for letting us come with you guys. We had a really good time. We'll have to do it again sometime. There aren't any pictures, but we went swimming pretty much everyday... but that's what you do when it 100+ degress outside, right? 
On day two we drove to the lovely city of Las Vegas! We went to the aquarium there at one of the hotels. It was alot like the aquarium we have here, but bigger and with a much cooler room with glass walls, floors and ceilings. Very cool! 
I think these fish are really cool. They look all spikey.
Here we are on the strip... luckily it was pretty clean. The kids wanted to go to M&M World. And of coarse they spent their $ on way too expensive M&M candies... but at least they had fun!
We just love Grandma and Grandpa Upton. We are so glad they came to visit. It's too bad we don't get to spend more time with them cause they sure are fun. Sadie was the only one who was a bit wary of them at first. But she warmed up and even let Grandma hold her before we went home. 
The kids sure had lots of fun on the blow up water slide. Thanks Uncle Michael for getting it and setting it up. Sadie even enjoyed getting plowed over by the boys on the slide. 
