Frontier Homestead Museum - #17

The Frontier Homestead State Park Museum is located in Cedar City, Utah.  The Homestead includes an indoor museum which houses a number of pretty cool horse-drawn wagons, buggies, stagecoaches and early transportation pieces, including a 1941 precursor to the snowmobile and a horse-drawn hearse.  Outside, the Homestead displays a couple old log cabins and farm implements.  The photo above is a picture of the George Wood cabin - the fifth oldest structure still standing in Utah.  The Homestead actually started out as the Iron Mission State Park displaying numerous iron implements from the early pioneers, including binders, mowers, reapers, scrapers and plows.  The collection is pretty impressive.  The name was later changed to the Frontier Homestead to incorporate more displays and history of Iron County.  If you like wagons and old transportation exhibits, you'll like this place.  Admission is $4.  

Location:  Approximately 250 miles south of Salt Lake City.  Take exit 57 off of I-15 in Cedar City.

One Star*

Territorial Statehouse - #16

The Utah Territorial Statehouse and Museum is an old building built from 1852-55 as commissioned by Brigham Young and paid for by the federal government.  The Territorial Statehouse is located in Fillmore and was intended to be the capitol building for the new State of Deseret.  The plans for the new Statehouse showed many more wings and a large dome.  The project was abandoned in 1855 after the federal government refused to provide more money for the project.  The Territorial legislature held one session at the Territorial Statehouse in 1855.  In 1858, the seat of government was returned to Salt Lake City.  The Statehouse is now a museum with lots of old pictures and some artifacts from early pioneers.  I think it is worth a walk through.  Friendly staff and admission is only $2.  No camping facilities.

Location:  Approximately 141 miles south of Salt Lake City in Fillmore, Utah.  Take exit 167 off of I-15 heading south.

Two Stars**

Territorial Statehouse and Museum

Millsite State Park - #15

Millsite State Park sits on the banks of the Millsite Reservoir which was constructed in 1970.   The campground includes 20 camp sites with restroom facilities, showers and sewage disposal station.  The primitive sites near the reservoir were nice with a gorgeous backdrop view of towering cliffs.  We stayed in Site #14.  If we come again, I would stay in Site #12 or #13.  These sites have a little more room and are oriented such that your front door faces the reservoir.  The nice ranger (same one that talked to us at Huntington) told us about a great single track hike around the reservoir.  After floundering around a bit at the golf course, we finally found the trail up beyond the reservoir.  It was a beautiful hike and we had the trail to ourselves.  For future reference, the trailhead is accessed at the end of the dirt parking lot beyond the golf course.  We would definitely come back to this campground for the single track trail and the convenient access to San Rafael Swell area. 

Location:  Approximately 165 miles southeast of Salt Lake City and four miles west of the town of Ferron off of Highway 10.

Total Sites:  20
Stayed in Site:  #14
Elevation:  6,100 ft
Date Created:  1970
Hook Ups:  None in primitive sites near reservoir

Three Stars***

Millsite State Park

Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry - National Natural Landmark

For years, every time we drive to Moab we see the sign for the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry and say "we should go out there sometime."  Well, this weekend we finally made it out to the quarry.  It is a pretty cool place out in the middle of desolate nowhere.  The quarry was named and protected as a national natural landmark as it contains the densest concentration of Jurassic dinosaur fossils ever found.  So far paleontologists have excavated over 12,000 bones from at least 74 individual dinosaurs.  Interestingly, more than 75% of the bones excavated are those of the carnivore Allosaurus.  Paleontologists are still mystified as to why so many bones are located here and why so many of them are juvenile meat-eating Allosauruses.  We hiked the Rock Wall Trail, Raptor Point Trail and the Rim Walk.  It took us about 2 1/2 hours to do all 4 miles of trail.  It is definitely worth checking out the museum and trails, especially if you like dinosaur stuff.

Location:  Cleveland-Lloyd is located about 32 miles south of Price, Utah, and is accessed on well-graveled roads from Highway 10 between Moore and Emery.

Three Stars ***

Huntington State Park - #14

Huntington State Park sits on the banks of the Huntington Reservoir which was constructed in 1966.   It is a quaint little campground with just 25 camp sites and one restroom facility. The campground could use a little more work and better planning for the sites.  Electrical service was recently installed for all the sites, but was not yet functioning for our weekend - which was too bad because it was a cold weekend and we could have used the furnace.  We stayed in the pull-through Site #4 which we called the "Houdini Site" because it was so small it was practically nonexistent.  We were really just camping in the loop road with our step stool in the road.  The brand new electrical and water hook ups were on the wrong side of the site so you had to park the trailer at the front of the site and then park the truck behind the trailer.  And the water hook up was so close to the ground that I couldn't attach the water filter.  The nice ranger said they plan to re-pour most of the concrete pads for the picnic tables and will carve out a little more space for Site #4 in the future.  I hope they consult with someone who camps before they do more work in the park.  We did the 2.7 mile "nature walk" loop around the reservoir which was basically a walk on a gravel road.

Location:  Approximately 140 miles southeast of Salt Lake City and two miles north of the town of Huntington on Highway 10.

Total Sites:  25
Stayed in Site:  #4
Elevation:  5,840 ft
Date Created:  1966
Hook Ups:  Electrical and water hook ups - coming soon

Two Stars**

Huntington State Park