by Mr. Bang

Washing laundry!  Playing dominos!  Playing marbles!  And much more!  This is just some of the fun at Frontier Homestead State Park in Utah.

There was an area out front where you could go in a steam shovel meant for carrying heavy iron ore.  It was pretty old and not very spacious.  The driver couldn’t see the other side of the steam engine at all.

  

There was also a caboose.  It had a chair and a table and a bathroom.

Then we went inside and we went to a printing press area.  There are volunteers until noon.  There are two printing presses where you put ink on the top.  Rollers come up, they put the ink on the rollers, then the rollers put the ink on the text.  They just explained that to us.

They gave us a bookmark like this.

There’s different fonts and tiny letter blocks, as you see here.  One of the volunteers dropped this block that he was making for his wife who was feeling sick that day and it took him all morning to make it.  

Then we went and there was a little display where you loaded stuff into a wagon to go out west. There was a box of necessities that you couldn’t take out.  We chose other things to load.  Don’t bring sugar – a bear will attack you.  If you bring whiskey, then you’re saved from a snake bite.

Then we went out back and went inside a log cabin where there’s a dominos game, and so we played.  There’s instructions of how to play.

Then we went out and washed laundry.  The clothes are pretty much as light as air when you lift them before they’re wet, and then once they’re wet, they probably weigh more than two pounds!  I like a washing machine better because it’s a lot less work, and personally I don’t like to do laundry very much and neither does my mom with a laundry machine.

From there, we went and I got to build my own log house out of Lincoln Logs and it was pretty good.  When I shook my house, only the roof fell off.  It was just boards as you see here.  Character Queen’s roof didn’t fall off and I helped her with it.  My house was too big for a roof like hers.

Then we went to an old timey jail.  There were costumes.  I didn’t get dressed up; CQ did, though.

Then we went into a school and there was a really weird alphabet, if you look at the board.  It is insanely weird.  What was different about the alphabet was everything was how it sounded.  My name was three letters and it’s normally five letters.  The guy who invented it was Brigham Young and he was a big leader of the Mormons.

In the big house, there was a desk where you could write a postcard, and there were a few different kinds you could choose from.  My sister wrote one, I decided not to.  I went to another room, and there was checkers.  I played my mom, and Character Queen did too.

Then we went into a building where they sheared sheep.  They weren’t sheering right then, so we got to go through the tunnels where the sheep came in and out.

There’s one of the things where your head pokes through as you see here.  Character Queen was a sheep and I was one of the people sheering them.

Our next dwelling was a Native American dug-out.  It was fun.  You could go on the roof!  And you could slide off of the walls on the outside!  You could also climb up them.

I got to pan for gold, and I found five pieces.  It was fool’s gold.  But it’s still really fun to get.

Then we got to an area where you could actually load up a wagon.  There was a box of 50 pounds of books, a 3 lb box of matches, a 50 lb whiskey barrel, and other crates that you could choose from.  We lifted crates and barrels into a wagon, and there was a certain amount that you could carry.  We made sure to bring whiskey, and I brought the matches.  We had 29 lbs leftover.

We went to an area where it taught you how to rope cattle and goats.  I didn’t get any, but I got close.  There were little statues with heads as you see here.  They were fun to try to rope!

Then we went in the building and a weaver came out and showed us some weaving.  We got to take some yarn home that we helped make.

Then I played marbles with Character Queen.  A park ranger taught us the real rules of it.  He got the marble set out just because I asked if I could play.  He gave us the marbles you shoot the little marbles with, and then he gave us 13 marbles – that’s how many you play with.  He gave them to us to take home.

I really liked Frontier Homestead State Park!  I want to go back again!