The great salt lake

It's a long drive today as we head south through Wyoming and into Salt Lake City. We leave around 8 and roll into our campground t around 5.

We attempt to take the scenic route but to be perfectly honest, there is not a lot going on in southern Wyoming. A couple of the towns are cool and there are a few impressive reservoirs that are surprisingly interesting. But there is a lot of desert too.

One interesting thing we passed was in the small city of Kemmerer. This was the home to the very first JC Penny store, which we passed on the Main Street as we went through town.

The other entertaining thing was the giant billboards posted along the highway warning of animals crossing. The first one had a picture of a big cow and said: caution! Slow moving traffic ahead.

Yeah that's about how boring our trip was, the billboards were the most interesting thing. Grady rode with grandma and papa and Colby with us. I think they are appreciating a little space from each other today.

The drive into Salt Lake City through Park City is beautiful. A storm hits just as we go through and we can see lightening in the distance, with a few sprinkles on our windshield. The stormy clouds' make for a dramatic backdrop and we climb the mountain passes and pop over to see the metropolis of salt lake. We drive through what feels like 5 cities and change freeways 3 times before reaching the exit to our campground.

The Pony Express campground is obviously newly built and designed for big rigs. The pads are all concrete with a small patch of grass and new round picnic tables. The unfortunate part is the location of this resort. It is between the airport and a giant Exxon gas refinery. We have views of gas lines being torched off and the sounds of airplanes taking off. The campground does its best to satisfy, though. The sites are a little too cramped and even thou we have a pull thru, we have to unhook and park our truck sideways to fit. Dads motorhome barely fits in the space, let alone his van. Eventually he parks the van just outside our door on a small patch of concrete clearly meant for this use and we park our truck on their front step. The space works better that way.

Steve grilled up some bratwurst and we try to enjoy a meal n the picnic table. It's windy so a little tricky but we all feel better after eating.

Next up we attempt to see a piece of the great salt lake. Which turns out to be a harder task than you can possibly imagine. I found a road on the map that looked ie we could drive but it turned out to have a gate on it. After about 30 minutes of wasted time trying to get close to the lake we head into town to cruise by the famous temple. The temple square is located right in the middle a a largely commercialized shopping district. There is a wall all around the temple so you can't really see much from the road. But the city is busy and packed with people, making the thought of parking an in appealing one. So we do a drive by tour and then head out west on 80 to see if we can catch a better view of the lake. We make it out to a state park which turns out to be a gigantic mosque type building that is currently hosting a large concert.

We can see the lake but it is mostly just mud flats with water in the distance. No boats because this gigantic body of water is very shallow and stinky. The sunset is gorgeous over the mountains and the water and war enjoy the ride out there.

Try to find a grocery store but are not successful and end up going back to camp to call it a night. We will go to the grocery tomorrow morning before heading down to Moab.

So long salt lake....

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