Cowboys and Indians Country

Antelope Island

Springdale, Utah -- Just outside of Zion National Park

After leaving Salt Lake City this morning, we headed about 35 miles north to Antelope Island State Park, a large island in the Great Salt Lake. The picture I have in my head of an island is something kind of small, kinda flat, and pretty empty. Antelope Island couldn't be more different. It's about 17 miles long, and several miles wide at its widest point. It has its own mountain range, a herd of about 700 bison, numerous pronghorn antelopes (hence the name), a bunch of mountain sheep, and who knows what else. No predators, though, so every year they round up some bison for sale.

The lake is too salty for fish, but it does have skillions of teeny brine shrimp. Birds love them, so the island is a major nesting and stopping-over place for birds.

The island is very scenic and a great place to visit to bird-and-bison watch, hike, etc. I thought we'd spend a couple of hours there, but we were there most of the day. Finally, though, we headed south to Zion.

We couldn't see them when we were in SLC, but a little south of the city on I-15 we saw snow-covered mountain peaks. Somewhere around Provo we lost sight of the far-away tall mountains. From there I-15 travels in a wide valley between impressive, but smaller, tree- and grass- covered mountains. We're getting blase about this kind of scenery, because we saw a lot of it during GART I. But 300 miles later, when we turned off the interstate on the way to our motel near Zion,  the world suddenly changed. Now the scenery is spectacular! With the huge mesas and towering rock formations, it looks like the setting for one of those westerns like "The Magnificent Seven." And there was a storm in the distance with amazing lightning flashes. This is the kind of stuff we came here to see. Tomorrow: Zion.

Grettings From Mormonville

Salt Lake City

Before I forget: Driving through Indiana we ran across a series of signs by a gun-loving organization called gunssavelives.com. A sample: Another crook is sadder but wiser. My grandma kept the gun beside her.

We spent all day in Salt Lake City exploring. We took a tour of the state capital and spent a lot of time in Temple Square, the downtown area that contains the Mormon Temple, the tabernacle, the administrative offices, and numerous other buildings. In fact, without the Mormon stuff, SLC would almost have nothing but shopping and restaurants. The Mormon presence is rather overwhelming, but in a nice way. The city is beautiful: clean, neat, friendly, covered with flowers, manicured lawns, etc. We arrived in Temple Square about 9AM, and there must have been 50 gardeners hard at work cleaning the pools, clipping grass, edging walkways, sweeping up dead flower petals, and otherwise making the place beautiful. It's like an elaborate, very expensive theme park. 

Temple Square has two over-the-top visitor centers, one focuses on the regular Christian Bible, the other on Mormonism. We explored getting a tour of the Mormon one, but politely declined the tour when it looked like there might be a little religious instruction involved. We easily did a tour by ourselves.

The state capital was interesting. We and a couple of other people were getting a tour of the almost-empty building from a docent when at least 100 Chinese tourists arrived, all taking pictures on their ipads. The guide said the Chinese make up the largest percentage of tourists in SLC.

Then we stopped in City Creek Mall, a beautiful shopping area in the middle of downtown. It's an inside and outside mall with a stream running through it and an enclosed walkway linking the upper level stores. Nice stores: Nordstrom's, Macy's, Tiffany, Coach, etc. Clearly, Mormons are not giving all their money to the church.

Since Mormons are not allowed to drink alcohol, we were surprised by the number of bars in town. Apparently, in order to get to host the 2002(?) Olympics, SLC had to agree to grant more liquor licenses. They never went away, of course, and they seem to be thriving.

One of the best stops of our day was a visit to the Salt Lake City Public Library, one of SLC's greatest architectural highlights. Partly surrounding the six-story library is a curving wall, at the base of which are nice shops, and a radio station. I can't do it justice. Check it out on line if you want to know more.

Finally, dinner at a Himalayan restaurant, and then back to the hotel.

Tomorrow, a visit to Antelope Island State Park, located in the Great Salt lake, and then on to Zion National Park.

We made it

Downtown Cheyenne

Salt Lake City

After driving all day Saturday to reach Cheyenne, and then having to find a decent (i.e., cheap) place to stay, looking for something to eat, and a little roping and branding, I was just to tired to compose a blog entry, so I'll try to make up for it now.

Saturday was uneventful, but long. Lots of driving. It rained coming in to Omaha, and then for about 30 miles.  West of Omaha the land began to open up wider and the highway became straighter. Also, it became clear even to my untrained eye that a lot of the corn was dead or stunted.

We stopped at Cabela's, a huge hunting and fishing outfitters, to look for a shirt for Serry.  I don't think we have Cabela's in the East. If you're ever out west and see one, stop in. The original store, in Sidney, Nebraska, is really something. It contains an amazing display of every North American game animal in a life-like diorama-like setting. Yes...of course they're dead.

Observation: On the Capital beltway, and other busy highways in the East where the speed limit is 55mph, everybody's going 75.  Out here, when the speed limit is 70, everybody's doing 75.  Perhaps this means that we're comfortable doing 75, and don't want to go much faster even when it's permitted.

Today, before leaving Cheyenne for Utah, we rode slowly through the deserted city and stopped at the state capital to take pictures.

West of Cheyenne  the countryside really opens up, and you understand what "wide-open spaces" means. Also, the topography becomes hillier and more interesting, with outcrops of rocks, small mesas, etc. And we saw a bunch of pronghorn antelope grazing by the highway. Very cool.

You may have noticed that we cleverly decided to leave on our trip just as gas prices were starting to take off. In most places we've been paying about $3.90, but in Laramie, WY (Is there a more Western-sounding place than Laramie?) we paid only $3.29.

Along the road we stopped in Wyoming at a place called Little America, a huge truck stop that also caters to regular drivers, with gas stations, restaurants, gift shops, a motel, etc. I'm not sure this was really a town, but it has its own post office and zip code.

Anyway, we finally made it to Salt Lake City. We're staying right in town and we'll explore the place tomorrow.

Pizza in Iowa

Indiana Museum of Art

Coralville, Iowa

Last night we stayed in a Baymont Inn that seemed kind of empty to us. This morning we learned that most of the other "guests" were living there. Serry overheard someone say she had lost her job, including the money she had contributed toward her retirement plan. It's very sad. At home, people experience hard times when their Mercedes is no longer brand new. Out here people really have it rough.

I'm glad to report that about 20 miles west of Dayton the road started to become less crowded and crazy. I guess these days you just have to travel a little further west to get out of the hubbub.

When I sit in the car as a passenger, I sit quietly looking out the window and maybe checking the map. When Serry's the passenger, it's like there's a family of monkeys in her seat. Out of the corner of my eye I can see her texting, playing with the GPS, climbing in the backseat to retrieve something, etc. It's exhausting just to watch her.

We stopped in Indianapolis today and spent three hours at the Indiana Museum of Art, a terrific place in the middle of 100 acres of gardens, sculpture gardens, etc. They have some great exhibits and I was really impressed with the quality of the little notes explaining the pieces of art. Concise, clear, and very accessible, they reminded me of Kimberly's masters thesis. This place is well worth a visit if you're ever out this way.

After the museum we drove the rest of the way through Indiana, all the way through Illinois, and part way through Iowa. Lots and lots of corn. It's kind of amazing that we can use it all, and we just rode through a narrow strip of only a couple of the states where it's grown in such large amounts. I tried to discern whether the corn has been damaged by the drought. I assume it has, but I don't know enough about how it should look at this time of year to be able to judge.


Now we're in Coralville where we just finished have a pizza in a sort of hip, trendy new brew pub. The beer was good and so was the pizza. But the kitchen is too small for the amount of patrons (on Friday night, anyway), and it took almost an hour for our pie to get to the table. (The waiter warned us it might take about 30 minutes. He was well-meaning...but way wrong.)

Tomorrow we'll see if we can get as far as Cheyenne, WY.

On the road again...

Huber Heights, Ohio (near Dayton)

Not much to report today. Except for rest stops, gas, etc., all we did is drive. We've seen the stuff here, we want to explore the West. When I drove to Colorado a couple of time 20 years ago-- Michael was at Colorado State majoring in mountain biking--it seemed to me there was hardly any traffic when I reached Ohio. I felt like I was sitting in my living room watching a highway on a big- screen TV.  No more: Now I-70 in Ohio feels like the Jersey Turnpike--construction holdups, rush-hour jams, tailgaters, lane weavers!  I can't believe how things have changed in 20 years. I haven't changed, why should Ohio?

Anyway, we had a nice Thai dinner, and now we're deciding where to stop off tomorrow. Maybe Indianapolis.

Richmond, VA

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

I'm here in Richmond visiting Michael, Kim, and Felix. Michael's showing me how to add pictures to my posts.

Cuter than a National Park but...

Despite little Felix being far cuter than any National Park, we are headed out west this Thursday to explore Utah and Colorado...