Week 12    BLOG

Monday July 21, 2014

Non-Travel Day

 

This morning we took advantage of the bike trail passing by the campground . Not knowing where the trail would lead us, we headed north; the trail was fairly level and followed the interstate highway. We traveled past housing developments, farm fields and industrial properties; but periodically we came upon parking lots and rest room facilities for users of the bike trail. The strangest thing we saw was a sign that read “Bikers / Pedestrians yield to horses”. At about 6 miles we decided to turn around, and were surprised at the strength of the wind we now faced, the second 6 miles was a real struggle; but we made it back ok.         After lunch we traveled north to the “Antelope Island State Park”, an island that sits 7 miles out in the Great Salt Lake that is reached by a causeway. Our first stop was the visitor’s center for information and to watch a film about the park. Next we went to the bathing beach, because of the low lake level the water’s edge was approximately 200 yards from what looked like the traditional shoreline, and that walk was somewhat difficult as it was over loose sand and gravel . Once we reached the water we had to walk another 100 yards to reach waist deep water, because of the high salt content in the lake it was extremely easy to float, in fact Jack was able to stay afloat even while pulling his knees to his chest and gripping his toes, it was a strange feeling to float in a curled up position. One major downside to the lake water is that it is extremely dirty, since there is no way for the water to leave the lake, other than evaporation, there is no movement in the water and therefore the debris remains floating in the water. After showering off the salt and dirt we changed clothes and headed out to explore the island, looking at the scenery and searching for the buffalo, of which there are about 400 on the island, and we did see several. It was an
interesting day.