We all looked forward to it, the magical day of Sunday finally came. We all collected in the parking lot late in the morning. Now last time I mentioned that our adventures have become more popular, it’s getting a little extreme now. The final count for today’s journey is at 17 this is amazing it’s also amazing that we got them all into three vehicles.
Before we get too far into today let me give you a little background. At heart I am a twelve year old boy. I like toys, I like to do stupid things and I especially like to do stupid things with toys. As I get older the toys really just get more expensive; cars computers fancy electronics that I don’t really need but I like to buy. But some toys are timeless. Today’s examples are Nerf guns. now nerf has come a long way since I was actually twelve, but they are still as amazing to me now as they were way back then and yes I still take them apart to see how they work and "make them better". Well several of us have purchased what would equal a small arsenal if you put them all together, many weapons and hundreds of sticky darts.
So the pretense of today’s adventure is a full on nerf war in a ghost town. For our town fatman has selected Frisco, UT. It is an abandoned mining town well out of the way. Perfect for the trouble we are looking to cause.
Anyway, back to the beginning pack them all in including rev. pappy keeping two white girls in his trunk and having a guy in back dressed like a Columbian drug lord. Yes it is a normal Sunday for us. We gas up and fatman carefully make his candy selection choosing non other than the famous three musketeers bar. We take off. On our way I remark to fatman that really we should be charging people for these adventures. People do remember to always at least tip your drivers... we make a side stop at the petro glyphs.
Now petro glyphs are pretty amazing if you care about history or are even remotely interested in people that were here hundreds of years before you and your cell phone. If you don’t know what petro glyphs are they are petrified writing and objects and really it just looks like a group of school children were having picture time on the rocks. I find it really amazing, and just think hundreds of years from now people will read the shit we write on walls, that is assuming that the apocalypse doesn’t wipe everything off the face of the planet first. It could happen. But just think about that before you write some really stupid shit onto a rock... back in the car.
we have a nice drive for a little over an hour visit some nice towns, and by nice I mean they raise farmers and serial killers, one gas station and no traffic lights I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the town still had outdoor plumbing. There were some beautiful views of small mountain ranges to go with the horrible views of desolate godforsaken wasteland. Eventually fatman being our driver makes the statement "ok, it’s somewhere on our right, but I never see it until after I pass it." I think these would be the worst directions to ever give someone, unless you don’t want them to get there. What do you know we pass a dirt driveway and hear "that was it". So we circle the wagons and head down the dirt road of death. As we pull in we see an amazing sight, broken down buildings, rock and mud huts crumbling away. And the trash people didn’t or couldn’t take with them and time just hasn’t destroyed yet. 'nam gives me an excellent tip "those rock huts with holes in them... ya don’t climb on the roof." apparently there was an incident he might have been part of on a previous excursion here.
In the "town" part of this ghost town there is a single room building, some large drum looking contraption, and four of these mud hut things. We take a quick look around and the nerf guns are brought into town. cougar-bait even brought the nerf bow and arrow. Before war there are sights to be seen, a road leads off to the left being to the mud/rock huts. Now I can’t really speak much about other people’s experiences because with a group this large I do what comes natural I sneak off into the hills and don’t tell anyone where I’m going. But I do have a small hand radio with me we were using them for communication in-between cars on our way out "in case someone got lost". the irony I realized and pointed out to others was the radios are small enough that if one of the cars did get lost they would most likely be out of range of the radios, but they were fun to talk between cars and count the number of signs that had been previously attacked by a shotgun, I believe the final toll was ten. Yep we came to a classy place.
Now I take off into the hills with a radio, hike up for a while and find some really nice views over the town and surrounding area. There are mountain ranges in the distance, some small mountains to the southwest. I get out my monocular to take a better look off in the distance; I spot the mining area in that same small mountain. Several buildings and such. I continue moving around, climbing over a couple of different hills. I stop with a nice view thru my monocular of the rock mud huts and see the large group moving in pieces up the roads towards them I have myself a bit of water and continue to watch them and also look around. They spent a while in that area and some small gunfights did happen to break out. Mostly it was rookie being ambushed by three or more people. the best one was when he ran for the fence and tripped right before it, once he was laying on the ground his attackers pounced and I almost felt bad for him being shot that many times. I decide to move again. Next time I can see them they are all moving back towards the rest of the town, I try to raise someone on the radio. Dead air. Well I couldn’t be the only person to bring one of the radios with me could I??? The answer was yes. Well screw them, I continue on my personal journey. At the top of the next hill I try the radio again and still nothing. There are some worriers in the group so I decide it would be a good idea to make some sort of contact with the group but I am way too stubborn to actually walk back there just to tell them I’m ok. I had used my compass earlier to get my bearings and the lid of it has a signal mirror and while this isn’t an emergency it is a fine use of it. I spot fatman, besides being one of the biggest people in the group he was wearing an awesome hat that you just couldn’t miss (if you don’t know I’m actually a big fan of hats as long as they are not onstage)... anyway I use the mirror properly and get his attention, I chose him because I knew he had binoculars and that was the only way he was going to see me at the distance. We waved and I continued my personal hike.
Just so we are clear I don’t recommend going off on your own in the middle of the desert, there are numerous things that could go wrong; snakes, spiders, rockslides, psychotic episodes, hillbillies. If you do, at least tell someone in your group where you have gone. Mostly to save them time searching for your body. This reminds me that I came down one hill and found a nice flat spot; I look around and start to notice those snake holes again. I start across in my destination on the theory that it’s too hot out here for cold blooded animals, and then the ground collapses a little bit under my foot. Well, I don’t wait around to see if I woke any little friends from there holes. I kick up my pace and find a new place to be.
Finally someone picks up a fucking radio. I ask what the plan is and if the plan could involve picking me up if it’s going somewhere I’m not. We rendezvous on a dirt road. Supposedly we were meeting near some kind of graveyard but I never saw one. We unload out of the cars again, this time we leave the nerf behind. I like that most people got more into the journey than the nerf war. Anyway most of the group head straight for what we will call the mining town. I stay behind, of course I do. Fatman bearfood and cougar-bait do the same we take the road less traveled. I find my first shotgun shell of the adventure and then another. We climb some large hills with spectacular views across the wastelands and to the mountains many miles away. During this time we notice a white minivan being a real creeper. Stopping then moving slow then drive away then turn around and do it again. They had a nice mugger/kidnapper vibe. Since we didn’t find a box of gold on our own we meet up with the rest of the group, sort of. Up a trail and around a bend is the mine itself. I don’t know if there were more of them around. Dilapidated building and old mining structures dot the landscape. Sensible people would say "hell no I’m not going in there", but we adventurous people say "oooh what could be down there???” to be honest i didnt climb my giant ass down the small hole, not for fear of it collapsing but mainly for two reasons; first i would have been at the back of the line and second because it looked like is was dug by i rare breed of midget that couldnt hit a normal person in the head with his pickaxe. This was also demonstrated later by some of the structures they had built here with five foot tall doorways.
Bear food and I take off up a hill made almost entirely of loose sharp rock. I find it amazing that my classification of hill has changed since living in Utah, what I used to call hills I think I will now call mounds of dirt. We scramble near the top of it roughly one hundred fifty feet or so. The view is almost indescribable. And so I’m not going to. We were actually trying to see what the view over the back side of this small mountain range looked like. unfortunately it would have taken us at least another half an hour or more and we noticed the group departing from the mine and headed back down except fatman, snakebite, and LPB (little pink backpack) they headed a different way and I applaud that. bearfood and I find another way down our slippery slope avoiding making a nice face plant in a cactus a couple of time we meet up. On our way back we investigated a couple of small buildings and some rocks but make it back. To celebrate the end of the journey fatman takes a shower of cream soda. Hey whatever does it for you I guess....
instead of stopping at one of the couple e.coli farms on our way back we go to a nice reputable restaurant. And yes I was that guy firing nerf darts out of the back window of a moving car at the car behind us.
In the end I covered probably only four miles. I would like to go back again and spend more time investigating the area. But I got to see some wildlife, rabbits and lizard and such I also took in some amazing views. I call it a success!
