Nevada- Salt Lake City

Flashback Friday!

(Again, I am aware that Salt Lake City is in Utah, not Nevada, "Nevada" is just the term I use to label all my adventures while I was living out of my car out west, and I was primarily in Nevada)

      I want to say that this was some time around the beginning of August, I want to say it was my first six-day break I got after our first week of the Johnson Lake Cabins Job. I went out there and met up with Dylan and one of her crewmates that she was taking to the airport there. (side note: There were two others from my crew at Salt Lake City at the time too, we met up with them twice, but they were kinda jerks so we didn't bother the rest of the time.)We found some BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land to stay on, a peninsula in the Great Salt Lake, one over from Antelope Island, where we did not stay as we were poor. (Pro tip: If you need a free campsite out west get on freecampsites.net and look for anything that's owned by BLM. Those are government-owned public lands and are completely free and legal to stay on. just don't start a fire or some other stupid shit.) We slept on a very comfy sand dune, and the sky was so clear and full of stars that we could easily see several shooting stars and watch satellites make their way across the sky each night we spent there.

      After Dylan dropped off her crewmate at the airport, we spent the weekend exploring the city and eating at Dell Taco and Dunkin Doughnuts. Because we for once were in civilization. If you fellow easterners are wondering what a Dell Taco is, it is the glory that would be if Taco Bell actually tried. They are a fast food taco place that's actually good, had fresh guacamole and salsa, with actual beans and meat that isn't the mystery ground up grease that Taco Bell has.

      Dylan and I quickly became friends over the weekend that started with a $5 concert by I don't remember, at the something-or-other-park. The music was OK, not really my type, but it was nice to just relax in the soft grass. By another very nice park that looked like it was between the state legislative and judiciary buildings there was this huge fancy fountain. The picture to the right refers too this when it says "No bathing in fountain allowed." How was this such a problem outside two massive state government buildings that they had to put it on the sign? People are weird.

Look how happy this guy is!

       We also had great fun exploring the Universities massive natural history museum, all with real fossils dug up right there in Utah. I really just mostly remember the fossils from it cause that's always one of the really cool parts of a history museum that everybody loves. Another exhibit that I really enjoyed was on the top floor was a circular room with pictures, artifacts and at least a hundred stories of Native Americans that had been local to the southwest. There was also a video with stories of current Native American culture. The view from the roof of the museum was also amazing. The university was on a high hill on the outside edge of Salt Lake City, from there you could see the whole city. OH, and there was a temporary exhibit set up that was all about shared DNA and genetics, that was also really cool, and the lobby ad banner for it was all like, "Did you know you're 40% banana?"

"Eeeeyyy"

       We also visited the Universities botanical Gardens that day, they were absolutely lovely and we almost walked in on a wedding going on in the rose garden. There was a nice kid's garden too that Dylan and I had fun playing in, and trails that went up into the mountains from the gardens. We didn't follow those very far as I did not trust myself to be able to go on a successful hike there with no shade, limited water, and in 95ish degree heat. We ate our Dell Taco lunch in a pretty patio area there and I don't know how I only have one picture from the whole garden. It's not even that great a photo, so I'm just gonna throw in a dinosaur here from the Natural History Museum.

      In the evenings we retreated to the BLM land peninsula and reassured each other that no, neither of us are in fact crazy, she missed trees too, and she also had to deal with some frustrating crew mates. Dylan was from Chicago originally, and we bonded over how different everything was out west compared to the ideas and lifestyles we were used too. (i.e. the only two radio stations available on the road between Great Basin and Ely was a conservative talk radio with and insane host and religious country music. I can't stand country music.) We also had similar views on watching the world, and that how animals interact with you has meaning.

      One morning I woke up on the dune and saw some odd dark clouds low over the salt lake from the direction of Antelope Island. Bridget and I thought, "huh, that's some weird fog." It wasn't until we saw the news story at the Dunkin doughnuts that we stopped at for breakfast that we were informed Antelope Island had a forest fire that had been going on for ten hours. The previous night we had debated going there to camp, as it might be nicer and more interesting, but had decided against it as we were cheap college students and it would have cost money. It was a little freaky knowing that the fire would have started only an hour after we would have fallen asleep. 

       That day we visited the Leonardo Museum, so called after Leonardo Da Vinci. They had various sections of the museum dedicated to art, illusion, science, and humanitarianism. They had a conservation of water section,and a kids area that had a programming video game that Dylan tried out. I believe her reaction was along the lines of "Why is this so hard, I can't figure it out, this is meant for kids?" They were also working on building an aeronautics portion of the museum at the time. there were also these floaty feathery things hanging all up the staircases, and we finally found the display, explaining it we found that they were artificially created single cell organism robots that were able to process and lightly respond to changes in their environment. I have no clue how it worked.

      I left Salt Lake City having made an invaluable friend. I have no idea how I would have gotten through the summer without having her to tell me that I'm not crazy. For that trip on, I visited her in Ely as often as I could, both of us needing the newfound friendship to help us rant and regain sanity over tacos.

"Floaty feathery things hanging form the ceiling"