From Salt Lake City to Reno

These first two pictures are showing you a lake, The Great Salt Lake. I took these out the window of the car as Megan drove us away from Salt Lake City closer to her home. In the original plan, Robin, Megan, and I were going to do the drive from Salt Lake to San Fran in one day. With only Megan and I, we decided that we might have to split it up into 2 days. Unfortunately, this would mean that we would have to stop at a hotel because we had not planned on a place--partly because we didn't really have a place in mind for the area that we covered. Regardless, everything worked out. Plus, this way, we stopped and examined some of the salt in the salt flats while on our way!
We phoned a friend to learn more about The Great Salt Lake, of course, that friend was Robin. I mean, she's The Great Geographer, we had to call her. Unfortunately, she didn't answer right away. Our curiosity grew: how big is the lake? how big was it when it was at it's largest? is the salt left behind usable? do we eat it? is it a source of income for the area? Megan knew the lake was pretty large. Come to find out it used to be part of Lake Bonneville, which used to cover most of Utah and part of Idaho and Nevada as well. The lake today fluctuates quite a bit due to its shallowness.

The record low is from 1963 when the lake covered 950 square miles and its record high was in 1987 when it spanned 3,300 square miles! On average, the lake covers 1,700 sq miles. The white stuff in this picture isn't the snow we'd been seeing just the previous day--this is salt.








The salt that remains from the lake's evaporated area is used for several things: salt for water softeners, salt licks for livestock, and to melt ice on roads, but not to eat. Any companies that extract salt have to pay royalties to the state of Utah since it owns the lake.








As you drive through the salt flats, also known as playas, it nearly looks like you are driving through a very flat plain that is covered in a thin layer of snow, until you stop or open your car window and realize that it's really f-in' hot. Like desert hot. Here, there was a structure, some kind of art sculpture, that Megan and I stopped to see. We didn't stay long because it was hard to adjust to how bright it was, and it was unmanageably HOT.

Playas are ideal places for racing apparently, which makes sense because they seem smooth and flat and there's nothing you could really crash into...however, I still find it a little odd. I would like to witness this racing business.



Interestingly, you can see another kind of "playa" right here in this photo. To me, it looks like I have a "high and tight" haircut. No offense to anyone, but I'm not sure it's a good look for me...
One might also argue that there were a coupla playas in the car that day...ok, this is getting bad. But, in all seriousness, I really like this picture of Megan and I and I'm not quite sure why. I think we are good-looking.













Ok, Pooks, you specifically commented on my potential "west coast elitist" attitude and here I am blogging with a few notes about the differences between driving in the southeast and the west. For one, there are casinos sprinkled across desert lands; this doesn't so much bother me, but the fact that one of them was called "Nugget" (see picture) is a little much.
As for another drawback, sometimes the weather can be entirely unpredictably odd. As we passed through the desert parts of Utah, a dust storm of sorts started. I was driving and all the sudden it got sort of dark. I think Megan was reading some of "On the Road" aloud when I stopped her because of this dust picking up with the wind. It was creepy. That whitish-cloud near the ground is dust being picked up by the wind, and I'm pretty sure that it was 4-5 stories high.


Eventually, it looked like this. Visibility was low, which was pretty creepy after having driven in areas where you can see just about as far as your eye will let you. I'm going to have to do a Part II...