Family weekends in Davis County, from free to the big gate

Outside Hill Air Force Base's Roy gate at 7961 Cottonwood Street sits one of the biggest free days in northern Utah: more than ninety aircraft, an SR-71 Blackbird among them, in a pair of hangars and a large outdoor air park. You do not need a base ID or an appointment, parking is free, and it is genuinely a two to three hour visit rather than a quick loop.

It is open Tuesday through Saturday and closed Sunday and Monday, so it is a Saturday outing on this list, not a Sunday one. There is a paid flight simulator on site for anyone who wants it, but the museum itself, hangars and air park both, costs nothing. The base, its mission and its air show cadence are covered on the Hill Air Force Base page on The Local.

At the edge of Farmington Bay, the Eccles Wildlife Education Center gives you a 1.6 mile boardwalk loop out over the wetland and a deck that looks onto a heron rookery, with an exhibit building for the days it is too hot or too cold to be out. There is no access permit and no charge here, which sets it apart from the state's waterfowl management area next door.

The building keeps Tuesday to Saturday hours while the trails are open in daylight, so a weekend visit works around the building or ignores it entirely. February is the month it draws a crowd, when bald eagles gather over the bay. The wider birding calendar, the permit rules on the management area and where to stand in each month are on the Farmington Bay page on The Local.

The causeway leaves the mainland at 4528 West 1700 South in Syracuse and runs seven miles out to the largest island in the Great Salt Lake, and for a single Utah State Parks day-use fee per vehicle it is the best-value big day on this list. You see bison and pronghorn from the road, walk the short Buffalo Point trail, swim or float at Bridger Bay, and can rinse the salt off at the beach showers before the drive home.

Go in with the conditions clear. The biting gnats own April through June, the walk from the parking to the open water can be long across soft mud when the lake is low, and the visitor center has been closed for construction. Each fall the park holds a bison roundup that is free to watch with park entry. The island has its own page on The Local with every stop and the current lake conditions.

The South Davis Recreation Center at 550 North 200 West in Bountiful holds the county's only year-round ice rink alongside indoor and outdoor pools, which is why a single trip can be a skate and a swim. Public skate runs on a posted schedule that includes Saturday and Sunday times, each session its own admission, with skate rental for a few dollars and a lower rate for residents of the five district cities.

From late November through February the district also floods the outdoor Bountiful Ice Ribbon downtown at 75 East 200 South, a skating loop rather than an oval, a block from the Main Street shops and the Thursday market in season. Both the rink and the ribbon close for competitions or the season on scattered days, so check the district's calendar for the date you want.

Layton's indoor wave pool at 465 North Wasatch Drive is the low-cost water afternoon on this page: a real wave pool with a rotating set of wave patterns, deep enough to be interesting and shallow enough for a first swimmer, at a low single-digit admission. Children under three are free, and inner tubes rent for a couple of dollars.

Two things to plan around. It is closed Sundays, and everyone who comes through the door pays admission whether they swim or not, so it is a poor spot for a parent who only wants to watch. Wave sessions run Monday through Saturday into the early evening, with a summer schedule and a lower-priced winter schedule; it is an afternoon outing, not a morning one.

The Clearfield Aquatic and Fitness Center at 825 South State Street is the most to do in one building on this list: a lazy river, a competition pool, an outdoor pool in season and a fitness floor, on a modest day pass. It is one of the few county pools with Sunday hours, running an open plunge on a Sunday afternoon as well as weekday and Saturday sessions.

The open-plunge times shift between a summer and a school-year schedule, and some weekday evening swims drop once school is back, so the useful move is to pull up the city's calendar for the exact date rather than trust a general time. As a rainy-day or too-hot-day plan it is one of the county's most reliable, because almost all of it is indoors.

Cherry Hill at 1325 South Main sits on the line between Kaysville and Fruit Heights, on an old fruit farm, and it is the full water day without the amusement-park gate: slides, a pool and a lazy river, plus mini golf, a maze, blaster boats and a climbing rock, and a campground if you want to make a weekend of it. A day pass covers the water; the all-access pass adds the dry attractions, and evening rates are cheaper.

The one rule that catches families out is Sunday: Cherry Hill is closed every Sunday, all season, no exceptions. The water park runs from late May into September, six days a week in peak summer and then Friday evenings and Saturdays once school starts, so a late-August water day needs the park's own calendar. The Fruit Heights side of the story, and which city it is really in, is on the Cherry Hill page on The Local.

Lagoon at 375 North Lagoon Drive in Farmington is the anchor at the paid end of this page and the reason the county draws a summer crowd: more than fifty rides, three of them wooden coasters on the National Register, a midway, and the Lagoon-A-Beach water park included with admission through the summer. It prices by height rather than age, so a tall nine-year-old and a short adult are charged the same way, and parking is a separate ticket.

Plan on a full day; it is not a two-hour stop. Lagoon opens for the season each spring and runs into early November, daily through the summer and on a reduced calendar in spring and fall, with Frightmares taking over in the fall. Rather than repeat a price that changes every year, this page points you to Lagoon's own calendar, and to Farmington's Lagoon page on The Local for the rides, the season and an honest account of living next to the gates.