Salt Lake Area
August 4th - August 7th

Saturday, August 4th
Vernal - Dinosaur National Monument - Salt Lake City

The rain was gone the next morning. We drove back east a little to Dinosaur National Park and went to the museum there. The museum was really cool. Millions of years ago, dinosaur carcasses had been washed to a sandbar by flood rivers. Sediment had piled on top of it and created tons of fossils in one particular spot. The museum was basically a quarry with walls built around it on this spot. The amount of bones there was incredible. Several nearly complete skeletons had been found there and are now on display at the Carnegie Museum.

So we checked out the museum - very interesting stuff. After the museum we drove a little further into the park and found a lovely picnic site. It was right by the Green River (same river we ate by in Utah a couple of weeks earlier) and made lunch. We swam in the river and relaxed for the afternoon.

From there we drove on to Salt Lake City. There were 2 hostels in the town and we were at odds about which one to go to. The one sounded clinical (like Glennwood Springs) and the other more chilled out. So we checked out the chilled out one and it looked terrible. It was in a seedy area of town and the building was dark and dingy. So the problem was solved - we were heading to the other one. It was clean and clinical but much better than the other ever could have been.

James cooked us a lovely Mexican dinner and we went to sleep.


Sunday, August 5th
Salt Lake City - Antelope Island

The history of Salt Lake City is quite interesting. In 1847, Brighman Young founded the city. He was leading a group of Mormons in search of a place where they coupld practice their religion free from persecution. When he saw the valley of what is now Salt Lake City, he said 'This is the right place'. They planned the city quite well. The whole city is a grid and all addresses are derived from the distance to the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle is their most sacred place of worship. They have them all over the world but this one was built in 1853. Temple Square houses the Tabernacle and a couple other religious buildings. We went there in the morning. As we entered the square, we noticed a lot of Mormom nuns walking around. They were giving tours of the grounds so we decided to do one. Two nuns led a group of about 10 of us around. They explained the religion to us, a little of the history of the area and what all the buildings were. Apparently these nuns come from all over the world to volunteer. They save up enough money to support themselves, spend 18 months volunteering at the Tabernacle, taking tourists around the grounds. They spread the word of Mormon and seem to do nothing else (our Mexican guide hadn't visited anywhere in Salt Lake and had been there for a year).

Temple Square was very interesting. The religion doesn't seem as bad a people make out. For example, polygamy was outlawed over a hundred years ago. The religion is very strict though. You have to 'be worthy' to enter the Tabernacle and in order to be worthy you have to follow the 10 commandments very stringently. They say about 50% of Utah is Mormon and most of those people aren't practicing Mormons. It's also weird because they follow the Bible and the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormom was created from the writings of these gold tablets that were found in the Americas. Some guy discovered them centuries ago, created the teachings and hid them again. To this day they have not been found and are apparently in a cave somewhere in the New York region. So they believe that Jesus was in the Americas way back when. They also have a living Prophet who is the head of the church and their main communication to God. He leads the church and can guide them according to present times.

After that we went to a shopping mall to get some food and a camera for Tanya. Then we got back on the road and went to Antelope Island.

Antelope Island is in the middle of the Salt Lake and is a pretty strange place. You get on to the island via a causeway. As soon as you get onto the causeway, this pungent stench hits you. Its the smell of sulphur and sitting water. Really gross. The smell gets better the further out you go, but it was pretty much with us the whole time we were there. The island is baren and bison and elk roam around. The campsite is on the water and there was a little beach. We weren't sure if we wanted to stay. It was a scorching day, the campsite didn't have one tree and we weren't quite sure whether we could handle the smell. It was an interesting looking place so we found a gazebo on the beach and settled in for the afternoon.

Shash, Tanya and I decided to brave the water. James was fasting again, so he decided to stay in the shade. There was another freeky matter. On the edge of the water was a 3-ft band of flies. It was like a black lining. If you threw a stone into them, it created a ripple effect - it was nasty. We found a break in the flies and head into the water. It was very shallow and we walked out quite a way, really freaked out about the water. The only flies were gathered around chunks of algae. We finally got the courage to dip into the water and then it was really cool. It was salt water and we could really float! It was also much cooler in the water.

We basked in the sun till it got a little cooler. We then went back to the campsite and setup. We were a little up the hill looking down at the water. It was a gorgeous view. I need to get the skunk off me from swimming so I went down to take a shower while the others started dinner. I was in a rush cause the sun was about to go down and I knew it was going to be a good one. Well, when I got out of the shower, the horizon was amazing. The sun was a brilliant red. I decided to sit on the car (I had driven to the showers) and watch it set. The beach was infront of me and the sun was glistening off the water. It made the smell of the island totally worth it.

I drove back to the camp and dinner was on the way. Just after dusk (and while we were cooking), the strangest thing started to happen. All the flies started to die. Our picnic table was literally covered in flies. It was the grossest thing - another wonderful part of the wild side of the great Salt Lake.

 

Monday, August 6th
Antelope Island - Garden City, WY

We head up north through Utah and into Idaho. We had breakfast and did some shopping in Ogden and drove to Garden City on Bear Lake. We checked into a KOA campsite and then went to find a place to go swimming. Unfortunately we were unsuccessful and came back to the campsite. James went for a swim while Shash and I went down the road to the state liquor store. Remember, we were still in Utah and only State approved places could sell liquor. It was a simple general store and you wouldn't have known they sell liquor. You had to ask for it as it was kept in a back room. After a shower, we had a great dinner around the fire.


Tuesday, August 7th
Garden City - Afton - Jackson - Lizard Creek, Grand Teton

From there, we went into Wyoming and drove through towns like Smoot and Afton. In Afton, there was an arch over the road made completely of Elk horns. It was quite sickening but we took a photo nevertheless.

Now I've forgot to mention that we were having car problems. Since I took the car into be checked in Denver, it was making the strangest humming noise. The noise was not coming from the engine and we came to the conclusion that it was the wheel bearings. We had called the VW dealer in Idaho Falls (about 20 miles out of our way). They had told us that they were no longer a VW dealership and that the closest one was 5 hours away - later we found out that they actually were a service center for VWs. I called VW roadside assistance and besides not giving us any roadside assistance, they gave us the number for a dealership in Spokane. We made an appointment. We were really nervous about causing more damage to the car because there were 4 of us and our stuff and camping gear. But I wanted a VW place to look at it because the car was under warranty. Finally, we reached Jackson and stopped at a local mechanic. He wasn't really helpful but did (as the guy who sold me the car did) tell us that he thought we would be OK to drive to Spokane.

Jackson was your typical ski resort town. We all split up for half an hour to run some errands and do some shopping. I went to find a fax machine (some stupid real world thing I had to send off) and walked around a little. Cute town but didn't grab me as anything spectacular. I'm sure in the winter the skiing makes up for it 10-fold.

From Jackson, you have to drive through Grand Teton National Park to get to Yellowstone. We drove the 50 miles or so to get to Yellowstone only to find out that all the campsites were full. So we drove back a couple of miles and found a cute little spot at Lizard Creek. The campsite was about 30 feet from the parking spot and there were bear warnings all over the place. You had to store all your food and toiletries in a heavy bin by the car and they even warned you to change your clothes after eating.

So we set out to make dinner and set up camp. Everyone had a duty to make sure we had only necessary food out at any given time. James was to make the dinner while the rest of us put up the tents and brought all the stuff out of the car. It was actually quite silly now that I think of it, but I guess the urgency was exciting.