Well, it's simple. 

• Make sure the doors are all closed.
• The windows, yes, they need to be closed also.
• Don't bother adjusting the temperature of the various thermostats. We'll take care of those.
• Cover the jacuzzi so that it stays warm.
• Turn off the oven.
• Make sure all appliances are off
• Make sure all lights are off.
• Make sure that you turned off the BBQ, if you used it.
• Extinguish any fire in the fireplace and close the glass doors.
• Bring your garbage with you.
• Lock the door on the way out (Push the SCHLAGE button, and turn the deadbolt handle)

Be sure you drive safely and carefully down the mountain. In the winter, the upper part of State route 143 can be treacherous with snow, ice, and "black ice". You certainly don't want to slide all the way down to Parowan. 

There's nothing more embarrassing than going outside late at night to admire the stars from the bridge off of level five (the entrance), only to return to find the door locked and unyielding. Especially when it's twenty degrees below zero outside. And, you're in your underwear. And no one can hear your banging on the door. (OK, I admit, I'm guilty...) So, what we've done, is make the locks so that they are not self-locking; you cannot lock yourself out of the front door, unless of course, you participate.

Front door: The door lever is not lockable; it is just a handle with a non locking latch. The door locks that we use are the Schlage brand; an electronic keypad type. When you rent the house, you'll be given a four digit code so that you can open the front door to the residence. There are eleven buttons on the Schlage lock, on top, a button labelled "Schlage", and below that, ten digits from 1 through 0.

Pushing the Schlage button causes the keypad to light up, which is useful at night. Just enter your four digit code, the lock will beep, and the handle below will be enabled, allowing you to "throw the deadbolt" and open the door by rotating the handle counter-clockwise.

 When leaving, enter your code again, and throw the deadbolt by rotating the handle clockwise. 

If you enter the wrong code, the lock will beep at you, and flash the Schlage button red. Successful input of the code will flash the Schlage button green, and you will hear an audible click, which signifies that the handle below has been activated.

Oh, one more thing. The front door has a safety device up high (the Swing Bar Door Guard), so that the door will only open part way. It's good to use once you're inside the house, to keep the people that you don't want inside the house, outside the house. Make sure that if you leave the house, that the lever is fully extended away from the door so that it does not inadvertently swing back and prevent you from entering. Locking yourself out of the house because of this door bar guard will lead to all sorts of bad things, like ladders, and breaking and entering.... We prefer not to go there.

Swing bar door guard

Garbage, and how not to make new animal friends.

 We try to keep a stockpile of plastic trash bags in the sliding cabinet to the right of the refrigerator, but, sometimes, they get used up. Bringing some 33 gallon plastic trash bags might not be a bad idea. You see, there is no public roadside trash pick-up in Brian Head. We all have to tote our trash bags down to the local nearby dumpster; the city picks up trash from there. It's a bit inconvenient, but, you have to remember that Brian Head has a permanent local population that measures in the dozens. Roadside trash pick-up is just not viable.

 And, if you consider that fact that occasionally, if you pay attention to your surroundings, you'll see a plethora of deer, an occasional elk or raccoon, lots of chipmunks, and rarely, a mountain lion or a bear. Leaving garbage outside will only lead to visits from potentially unwanted guests. Considering the fact that raccoon sometimes are infected with rabies (and bears, well, say no more...) you really don't want to attract the local inhabitants to your front door.

 The nearest dumpster to us is just right down the road, at the beginning of Pinehurst, where it branched off from Ridgeview. You drove past it on the way in.