EMERY COUNTY, Utah — "Max Tracks" trips involve a lot of preparation without a lot of planning. I study the map, but I don't plan the route. I don't arrange interviews with local leaders, but I do look for events that might bring people out, and I noticed this time around I could time the trip to make it to Emery High School's Homecoming celebration.
There's just one high school for students from the most populated area of Emery County, so I figured homecoming would be a big deal and I was right.
The parade included local elementary schools, emergency crews, and about every high school club you can imagine, from robotics to the student council.
I stopped three kids, eighth graders Dean and Ethan, with Ethan's fifth grade sister, Gabby, to see what was really fun about life in Emery County.
Dean had other ideas when I asked what people did around his hometown.
"There's a lot of things. Diesels going by for the power plants. A lot of forest service stuff in the mountains. So really there's a lot going on for a small town," Dean said, in what could be part of his pitch to run the local Chamber of Commerce.
Locals packed the football game, and you could almost say there were locals on both sidelines. That's because the Emery Spartans were facing their nearby rivals, the Carbon High Dinos.
I stopped to talk with Tom Farlaino, who spent most of his life living in Price (he was cheering on the Dinos), and his job with the gas company took him all over Emery County.
Like so many residents of Utah's Coal Country, Tom's dad worked in the mines and brought stories home. Like the time he and his colleagues found a dinosaur footprint in the coal above their heads.
"There's lots of stuff like that around here," he said.
Emery ran away with the game, but like all high school games, the student section of the stands was more about the party than intense attention to the gridiron. If you watch the video, you'll see I'm the old man squinting in an unsuccessful attempt to read the fight song lyrics on a playing-card-sized cheat sheet.
I camped at Joe's Valley Reservoir. It's a place I've wanted to see for a long time. If you've thought about it, you should act on it more quickly than I did.
It's a stunner.
Driving up a canyon paralleling a strong-flowing creek, the dam sits at the point where the narrow cliffs open into a valley that draws rock climbers, boaters, mountain bikers, and off road enthusiasts.
I lucked into a first-come first-served site with no campers nearby.
Before getting to Joe's Valley, I had tried to find a spot at Millsite State Park. Even though every site was taken, it was a lucky mistake because Millsite Reservoir was beautiful, and there was clearly another attraction adjacent to the dam.
Millsite Golf Course is owned by the town of Ferron, so fees are cheap and the course itself embraces it's terrain. Winding around cliffs with tee shots over ravines. I'd lose a hundred balls in 18 holes, but It'd be worth it.
The woman running the course, Kollette Cologie, was a treasure trove of local knowledge. Her grandfather owned the mill that gave the lake and golf course their names. She shared the story of her grandfather logging in the mountains, and using a mirror to signal her grandmother at noon every day at lunchtime to give reassurance he was safe.
"It was their cell phone," Cologie said of her grandparents.
Cologie raised three kids of her own who all stayed nearby, including Tyson Huntington, the Emery County Sheriff.
I didn't think I'd find a golf course, so I didn't have clubs to play, but driving a cart around the facility was like a perfect short ride on ATV trails, and I met golfers from nearby communities of Orangeville and Cleveland, and from the Salt Lake Valley.
From the golf course, I drove to Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry, which is now part of Jurassic National Monument.
If you're like me, you've seen signs off of Highway 6 pointing towards the quarry, and you've kept driving to Moab while thinking, "Someday...."
Someday came for me, and the quarry was a lot more than I expected.
A beautiful visitor center with the requisite scary carnivore skeleton snarling from the lower level to the upper. More Allosaurus (Allosauri?) fossils have been found at the site than anywhere else in the world. In fact, it's the real Jurassic Park. More fossils from that epoch have been found onsite than anywhere else.
If you have small kids who like dinosaurs and who also need a place to run around so they can get to sleep back at camp, the bigger attractions may be the trails.
One leads into a copse of boulders, with picnic tables located in the alcoves. Scattered through the rocks, sculptures of various extinct critters make the paths more palatable to those who aren't so into museum exhibits or distant desert horizons.
After a nice Saturday night at camp, I cast a line into the lake on Sunday morning. I heard the reservoir was a challenging fishing spot. That's a bonus to me because I enjoy the act of casting a line into the water and not catching things.
I'm a little too self conscious to just stand and stare at the water without an excuse.
You can imagine my disappointment when a fish bit on the random lure I pulled out of my tacklebox. I have cultivated my reputation as an incompetent angler for decades, and the one time I fish on camera...well phooey. It was a nice little fish and I released it to swim another day.
