Day Twenty-Five - The Great Salt Utah

We drove as far as we could last night. Wish it was farther, but what can you do?

I am, however, glad we didn't do western Utah in the dark. Eastern Nevada was beautiful. A lot like much of the other desert we've seen. And like the other deserts, it had its own characteristics too. The mountains here were a lot like California's, but came to peaks, where California's just rounded off. Both were about the same size.

Again, we were on Interstate 80, heading east. Utah was not far, maybe a hundred miles or so. Time flew by as quickly as I drove. Flow of traffic was 85. Sometimes 90. I have never gone that fast before. Maybe I'm just overly-safe, but I don't trust myself at that speed. These roads, though, were flat and straight and you could see for 15 - 20 miles ahead of you. What a site! A lot of people would say that it was boring, but I loved it. Nikki was mostly awake. Simon and Garfunkle were playing on the mp3 player and she asked, "Are Simon & Garfunkle the ones who do the tiger thing... and the one guy was mauled by one of them?" "No," I answered, "that's Sigfried and Roy." She hasn't been with us very long. Silly Nikki!

Smash slept until after we crossed the Utah state line. We work her up for the Salt Flats.

Almost immediately after crossing into Utah, it flattens out and looks like a fresh layer of snow is covering the ground. It was 85 degrees (give or take), so it was obviously not snow. Sand? We weren't really sure and assumed it was a mixture of salt and sand.

Then it turned pure white. We stopped the car and all walked out onto the flats. It was pure salt and crunched under our feet. Some parts were still damp like a small pond was just drying up. My foot sank in about an inch or so, much to Nikki's giggles. Immediately following, Smash's foot sank in up to her ankles.  Hearty laughs all around.

The salt had crystalized over everything. Over the tracks, the sticks, the random litter and bottles too. We found a pool of water covered by a thin layer of salt. Our fingers poked through and Nikki and I wiggled then around in the water. I suggested that we taste it to see how salty it was.

Without a thought, we pulled our fingers from the water, put them to our lips and...

HOLY CRAP!!!

This was the foulest salt EVER! Seriously. If you ever find yourself in the middle of eastern Utah and are tempted to see just how salty small puddles of water are, trust me. Back away slowly and RUN! Nikki and I both spit it out repeatedly. We couldn't spit enough! Just gross! Do NOT try this at home!

But too late! The salt was all over our fingers and shoes... it was everywhere. Beautiful to look at, interesting to walk on... but seriously, don't put it in your mouth. I have no idea what we were thinking. Evil.

Back in the car, we drove to Salt Lake City, but skirted its western edge. No need for city driving unless we have to, right? Right.

Our destination, for now, was Ogden. More than anything, it was a town near a cheap state park. Willard Bay State Park. $14 a night. And we already paid it months ago! Nice!

Anyway, Nikki and I got chinese (very good too) while Smash sat and watched us. Then Smash went to a really cool Italian place and Nikki watched her eat. I, not wanting to just sit around, took off to find the older downtown area. This is where they film the TV show Everwood. If you've not seen it, check it out, pretty darn good. I found it on 25th Street.

It was an OK downtown. Nothing to write home about (though, I guess I am anyway). I got a few pictures and just milled about. None of the stores really interested me. Mostly specialty crap stores. No thanks.

Then it was time to find out campground and site. Nikki called and got directions, which were simple and I drove us the six miles from Ogden to Willard Bay. Our camp site was pretty crap, so we asked the front desk lady if we could change since we're pretty much the only people in the campground. Seriously. at 5pm when we got settled in there was the host and another tent out of 40+ sites.  The lady told us that almost every site was taken. There were a handful of other pretty crap sites that we could take, but we opted not to. She seemed to be very bothered by us bothering her. Like we were interrupting her TV watching. Annoying. Oh well.

We wanted site 7, but that was taken, or so she said. We'll see. I'm betting it's not. We stuck with our original site and more or less just dealt with it. It's not bad, I guess.

Nikki and Smash played some soccer (or rather, kicking the ball around) for pretty much the first time since buying the ball (which was on our first night). I watched and joined in occasionally.  The lake (the Great Salt one), is about 1000 feet away. Or maybe it's just the bay, but it's part of the lake. I guess. I really don't know. Anyway, we tried to see if Nikki could go swimming, but it was muddy as all get out. So we got out and played some more soccer.

I announced that I was going to "do the pictures." This means that I was going to take the pictures from the cameras, load them onto the computer, go through them and arrange them to put up on the site. It's almost a ritual by now. We all gather around the flickering glow of my trust little laptop and giggle at our antics from earlier in the day. It's something we do together. Fun stuff. Oh yes. Really, it is.

And that's about it for today. Not a lot of excitment, but then again, we left Route 66 weeks ago! Kidding kidding. We're still having a blast. Maybe we'll never come home! HAHA!

Stats
Miles traveled today: 412
Hours on the road: 9
Miles traveled in total: 8036

Pictures
Pictures from Eric's Camera.
Pictures from Smashley's Camera.

Where are we?
Map showing where we are today!
(Purple = where we've been. Red = where we traveled today.)