As we left Salt Lake City Tuesday morning, October 23, our plan was to take Interstate 80 and stop at the Bonneville Salt Flats for some photos. The drive out there was great and there were several interesting photo opps as we got closer to our destination.
An abstract artistic sculpture called Metaphor: The Tree of Utah stands of the edge of I-80 on the barren Bonneville Salt Flats west of Salt Lake City. Swedish artist Karl Momen created the 87-foot high tree between 1982-1986. He financed the project himself to bring bold color and beauty to the stark, flat, salty landscape. The sculpture is made of 225 tons of cement, almost 2,000 ceramic tiles and five tons of welding rod, and tons of minerals and rocks native to Utah. After completing his work Momen returned to Sweden, donating the sculpture to the state of Utah. The inscription on the trunk of the tree is Schiller's Ode to Joy, as sung in the choral climax of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. (info from https://utah.com/metaphor-tree-of-life)
We pulled off the interstate at a rest stop specifically for the Salt Flats.
The Bonneville Salt Flats is one of the most unique natural features in Utah, stretching over 30,000 acres. The Salt Flats were formed when ancient lake Lake Bonneville dried up. The Great Salt Lake is a remnant of Lake Bonneville. During the last Ice Age, about 15,000 years ago, Lake Bonneville was the size of Lake Michigan. It covered one-third of present day Utah and parts of neighboring states. You can see traces of the shorelines, representing different levels of the receding lake, etched into the mountains surrounding the salt flats. (info from https://utah.com/bonneville-salt-flats)
The Bonneville Salt Flats is one of the most unique natural features in Utah, stretching over 30,000 acres. The Salt Flats were formed when ancient lake Lake Bonneville dried up. The Great Salt Lake is a remnant of Lake Bonneville. During the last Ice Age, about 15,000 years ago, Lake Bonneville was the size of Lake Michigan. It covered one-third of present day Utah and parts of neighboring states. You can see traces of the shorelines, representing different levels of the receding lake, etched into the mountains surrounding the salt flats. (info from https://utah.com/bonneville-salt-flats)
Although the Salt Flats are typically dry in the spring and summer, by fall and winter they are covered in shallow water. It was only about 3-4 inches deep maybe and very easy to walk in. I decided to go barefoot and it took a minute for me to get used to walking on the hard, sometimes almost painful, packed salt. It was just SO beautiful though. Just amazing!
And just to prove even further that it's indeed real salt, look what we saw from the highway!!
We also drove just past the rest stop to Exit 4 to find the official entrance to the Bonneville Raceway. Numerous land speed records in various vehicle categories and classes have been set on the Bonneville speed way. In 1960, Mickey Thompson became the first American to break the 400 mph barrier, hitting 406.60 mph and surpassing John Cobb's 1947 one-way Land speed record of 403 mph. (from Wikipedia)
The salt was also covered in water here as well, so I didn't take the time to actually walk out in it this time. But we were the only ones there for quite a while. It's located a few miles down a road that dead ends at the Salt Flats. It was really great being there all by ourselves!
The Salt Flats are on the border of Utah and Nevada, so a quick hop back on Interstate 80 had us shortly crossing the line into Nevada courtesy of the town of Wendover, which straddles the two states. It was easy enough to identify the Nevada side of Wendover as we soon saw signs for the casinos!
We just did a grocery store run and got gas in Wendover and then decided to leave the Interstate and take Hwy. 93 south towards Ely because I wanted to catch Route 50 west through the middle of the state for some extra small town scenery. We didn't make it all the way on this day though. We found a small one-way gravel road on some public land in the Goshute mountains and decided to venture down it to find a private off the grid campsite for the night. That's the first night that we went "boondocking" and although I was a bit nervous at first, it turned out to be one of our most favorite nights of the entire trip! Boondocking is essentially camping without hookups. You may also hear it referred to as 'dry camping'. Often, dry camping means staying in a campground without hookups, whereas, boondocking typically means staying in a completely undeveloped area. And this area was just that! We couldn't see anyone at all from where we were and we also enjoyed the light from the nearly full moon, along with our campfire!
We climbed up a nearby hill (pretty steep so I may classify it as a small mountain), and the views were outstanding! We got to see the sunset, actually had some phone signal from up there, and were surprised when we turned around to see the full moon rising. It was breathtaking!!
To make it a real boondocking experience, we tried some of the freeze-dried food in a bag that Jim bought. It's that emergency food that lasts for 30 or so years. LOL! All you do is open the bag and add water. Jim had the chicken and rice, and I had the spaghetti. Surprisingly, it was REALLY good. Much better than I had expected it to be! We had a fantastic campfire that night and I enjoyed photographing the stars and landscape under the light of the moon. The RV shot below was completely at night (as was the other three), but it was a long exposure on the camera so that the moonlight lit up the area beautifully! The tint of orange on the front of the RV is from our campfire.
And then we were up the next morning in time to see the sun rise above the mountains! And shortly after, we were back on the road heading towards Ely, Nevada.
