Road Trip 2025: Day 8

I did not sleep as well last night as I had been sleeping in the tent. But I am glad I was able to take a shower.

We wanted to swim in the Great Salt Lake. It’s a thing. We Jaegers like to swim in any well known body of water we encounter. Therefore, we went to Antelope Island because it has a beach on the lake. However, when we arrived and stopped into the visitors center, we learned that a twenty year drought has left the lake relatively empty. It is down twelve feet of water. To actually reach the water, we would have had to walk on the icky ground for quite a ways and then, we wouldn’t get deeper than our knees. I asked G3 if he wanted to stick his feet in the lake. His response, “No. It looks kind of disgusting.” I had to agree.

Instead of a swim, we went for a hike. As we were driving along the road, en route to the trailhead, we saw bison. Most of them had just finished crossing the road and they were spreading out across the field. The little baby bison were cute running to keep up with their moms. We got out of the car to takes pictures, and as we were turning around to return to the car, we saw a few stragglers crossing the street to catch up to the herd. Even though it wasn’t our first time seeing bison in the wild, it was still nice to encounter them.

G3 and I hiked along the Frary trail. He made it known from the start that he wasn’t up for a long hike, but a short hike with him is definitely preferable to a long hike alone. After a half hour, he was ready to turn around, but I coaxed him into going another ten minutes. While we didn’t reach the peak, we did gain enough elevation to see both sides of the island. Unfortunately, it was extremely hazy, so the views were rather flat and bland. We could, however, see how low the lake was based on how far the water was from the shoreline. What was once covered in water appeared to be covered in a layer of salt crystals. What I did appreciate was the salty smell in the air which reminded me of the beaches back home.

Kati’s cousin lives in Salt Lake City. She messaged him yesterday to see if he and his family might be around for lunch today. It was the first time we met his wife and two young children. The kids were cute and super friendly, especially since we were strangers to them.

The Wasatch Mountain Range is to the east of Salt Lake City. The Little Cottonwood Canyon is in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Kati’s cousin recommended that if we had time we should take a drive through the canyon, so that’s what we did after lunch. Before arriving in Utah, I didn’t know the mountains around Salt Lake City were so majestic. The canyon was carved by a glacier and the drive—jagged peaks rising up on both sides—was pretty.

Utah is Mormon country. Salt Lake City is their Promised Land. Therefore, I felt it imperative to visit Temple Square and step inside the Tabernacle. As we were walking toward the entrance to the Square, a woman stopped me and asked if I was the person she encountered hiking the Frary Trail earlier that day. While on Antelope Island, G3 and I did have a brief conversation with a woman and two men. They had gone all the way to the peak and told us it was worth the climb. I was rather impressed the woman recognized me, and I told her that it was me she had seen earlier. She was quite excited about the randomness of it and her brother felt the chance encounter occurred for a reason, so before we parted, we exchanged contact information. It would be really cool if we did manage to keep in touch.

Anyway, we didn’t have too much time at Temple Square because we were meeting friends for dinner. But I was able to take pictures and go inside the Tabernacle to see the immense organ pipes. At night,

the Temple is lit up so that it looks like it is glowing and you can easily see it from anywhere in the city.

We met our friends at Dave and Busters so the boys (G3 and their two sons) could play video games and not be bored while we caught up. They left Jersey eight years ago so there was a great deal of catching up to do. I’m glad we were able to meet up because it was a very enjoyable evening.