During our month in Salt Lake City, Man and I and Becky (of Kinexxions) took two day trips. Our first day off from research was spent at Antelope Island State Park and the Great Salt Lake. We took this trip on May 25, 2011.
You reach the island by driving north out of Salt Lake City on I 15. About 25 miles (give or take) from our campground we turned west on SR108, West Antelope Drive. SR 108 is also shown on my map as 127 and eventually as you get to the lake it turns into the Davis County Causeway. The causeway is about 6.6 miles long.
You know, sometimes Mother Nature and her brats toss you a surprise. We got one on our trip to Antelope Island in the shape of snarly nasty BUGSSSS, gnats and midges. Yes, they are as nasty as they sound. Can we all chant, EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. There were thousands of these ickies, driving through the masses and clouds of them was a hazard. Here is what they look like all smushed onto the side view mirror of Big Butt.
It took Man hours of scrubbing to get these things off Big Butt, they were everywhere, the windshield, the grill, the headlights. And, the gnats bite, and they decided that Becky tasted super fab, she had red welts for days afterwards.
We made a stop at the Visitors Center, which had very nice displays and some stunning art work. We ran back to Big Butt (those stinking bitin' gnats were still chasing us) and started out to discover the island, driving (with the windows open for the most part).
No matter what the conditions, there are always some visitors that just have to go in the water. Between the bugs and the coolish temps, I did not even contemplate this as a possible activity.
The mountains with snow at the end of May always draw my attention, and this time I got a bit of a reflection of the mountains in the Great Salt Lake.
The island is also the home of the Fielding Garr Ranch. We spent a hour or so just wandering around, taking photos, taking in the barns, work areas, farm equipment, buildings, furniture as well as the beautiful flowers. (The bugs were tolerable at the Ranch, we have no idea why.)
Below, I particularly like the horseshoe handles.
Below, where some of the ranch hands slept.
Below, a food storage building.
Inside the family home. I have a hope chest that is similar to this one, although mine is not nearly as large.
The island is home to a small bison herd, but, I failed to get one good photo of a buffalo. My opportunity to photograph them would come in a few weeks when we toured Yellowstone National Park. There are also pronghorn (antelope) on the island, we saw just a few, they were hiding somewhere.
* Part of my procedure when organizing a post of this type is to look at all the photos of the day and jot down my favorites to share. When I did that this time and then went to Becky's post from that day I realized that she and I think very much alike when it comes to taking photos and which ones we like enough to process and share. So, please go visit her post on the day trip to Antelope Island. Pretty much every photo she has there, I have a duplicate of in my collection, or a variation of it. I have almost exact duplicates of the first, third, fourth and fifth ones on her post, in fact my versions of those photos were on my list to show you. So, I picked other photos, gladly.
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1 comment:
This looks like a fun little trip. I'm putting it on the list for a future trip through the area. Also on the list - bug spray. Thanks for the warning :)
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