Meadow Hot Springs

We went camping last weekend and had a blast. It is always a lot of work, but we usually have a great time together. The drive was pretty significant since we went all the way down to White Sand Mountain, just west of Meadow, UT. Uncle Bryan had been down there a few times with his scout troop, so he invited us down there and was the tour guide for the weekend.

We planned to set up camp here: (coordinates: 38.915259, -112.492692), but the spot was occupied when we arrived at about 6pm. We’d towed our neighbor’s little pop-up trailer for Manina and the girls to sleep in while Jake, Drew, and I all roughed it in the tent. We explored for a bit, and found a good spot up on a ridge, overlooking the valley only a few hundred yards away.

Manina made dinner which was great (and cooking is so much easier in the trailer than out over a fire or some other camp stove). Then, we opened an entire half gallon of ice cream and let the kids have at it.

Bryan and Michelle got there after dark, but quickly got started making some dutch oven cobbler. It cooked while they went off to setup their tent, and meanwhile their kids played with our kids and got crazy. Nate, Kayla, and Becca quickly became buddies with all of our kids and they had a blast together for the rest of the trip.

The cobbler turned out to be delicious, and we were joined by another family who had kids nearly the same ages as ours. Bryan works with the husband, Jacob Hamberlin, at Stock Building Supply. They were nice folks, and their kids quickly joined in on the fun too.

We woke up Saturday morning and had an easy breakfast. I boiled a couple eggs in the trailer, the kids had pop tarts and cold cereal. We had planned a busy day, so we didn’t have a lot of time to cook and get ready.

Our first excursion was to head out to the hot springs. The hot springs are out in the middle of a cow pasture, on private property. However, the land owner has fenced in the hot springs and made some nice improvements to make it accessible to the public. When we got there, there was one other couple in the pool, but they quickly left after they saw us heading their way.

The hot springs were super nice. They’re not stinky at all, and the water is a very comfortable temperature, around 100° F. The pool was actually pretty deep too. Ellie and Drew aren’t strong swimmers, so they were the most timid—we should have brought floaties for them. The other kids had fun balancing on the rope stretched across the pool, playing slime wars, doing cannonballs, and splashing around.

We stayed in the pools for at least a half hour. Maybe longer. Our toes and fingers were definitely wrinkled by the time we got out.

Our next excursion was to go see the lava tubes. The drive to the lava tubes was over some bumpy roads but it was well worth it. The lava tubes are underground cave-like structures, apparently formed long ago by flowing lava.

We explored several long (couple hundred yards) tubes that we could scramble into and all around. The kids had fun, although there were a couple of difficult scrambles. Megan went into one offshoot chamber that required some army-crawling for about 50 yards before opening up into a bigger room. Some of the caves were pretty dark, others were small enough to catch some light from the ends of the tunnels.

Claire came home with a bunch of great igneous rock samples for her rock collection she’s putting together for her 2nd grade science project.

After the lava tubes, we decided to do some shooting. Bryan brought along some tennis balls, and we pulled out our .22s and started firing away. Katelyn wasn’t feeling very well, but everybody else had a chance to shoot a clip or two. Eventually, even Manina was persuaded to try her hand with a rifle, and she said she really enjoyed it. I guess we’ll have to do that more often. It was a hit.

We went back to camp and got packed up. It was late afternoon and we were all pretty hungry. Bryan had a solution for that problem too, and we met them at the Costa Vida restaurant off Exit 162 for a hearty lunch. It was a great way to wrap up a fun camping trip. We had a great time hanging out with our Cryer cousins.

We’ll definitely do it again soon.