The Great Salt Lake Adventure

Today in RS, I announced my "good news" minute. "Yesterday I swam in the Great Salt Lake," I said proudly. "Ew. Sick. Gross," was the simultaneous response. Everyone knows that only uninformed out-of-staters actually try swimming in the Great Salt Lake. We wanted to check it out though and see if it really was as gross as everyone says. It couldn't possibly be as gross as some of the stuff I have waded through in slot canyons.
We first stopped at the Visitor Center on Antelope Island. We didn't see any antelope, but there were TONS of giant spiders. I'm not exaggerating. They were huge and there were tons of them lining the walk to the building, in the over hangs, on the windows, and in the bathroom. SICK! I couldn't really handle it, so we moved on to the beach. After a lovely picnic, we headed down to the water. The final 10 feet to the shore is COVERED with tiny black flies. You have to hold your breath and run, stepping on them as you go. Safely in the water now, all you have to worry about is tiny brine shrimp and the dead flies floating on the surface... any any open wounds. Once we got out to where we couldn't touch anymore, it really wasn't that bad. In fact, it was really cool. You really do just float. You can 'stand' completely verticle without treading water and just bob there. We stayed out there for a long time, just chillin. Fortunately, they provide showers there too. So we could rinse the salt off before heading home.
There. Now I can cross that one off my list. Have you been swimming in the Great Salt Lake?

There might be flies on some of you guys, but there aint no flies on me.

Yep. That's a floating Sasha.

Utah Lake Adventure (Play by Play)

6:00 pm: Amy, Megan, Dave and Whitney hit the lake. Conditions look ideal for our Utah Lake Adventure so we plan to proceed. (After some amazing wakeboarding and target practice).
8:30 pm: Whitney pops the airmatress when trying to stick the landing at about 35mph.
9:00 pm: We gather our overnight things, buy a new air matress, and head back to the Lake.
11:00 pm: We anchor the boat in the middle of Utah Lake using 70 lbs of lifting weights. Then we blow up our air mattress and tie it to the boat.
12:00 am: We were unsuccessful at finding Jaws, so we watch a surfing video on Shane's laptop.
1:00 am: Amy and I climb onto our floating bed, endure a single splash to the face, and then rock gently to sleep.
3:00 am: My eyes open and I wonder breifly what shore I'm facing.
4:00 am: My eyes open and I wish someone would turn off the moon so I could sleep.
5:00 am: My eyes open and I roll over and face the black water, picturing a giant carp pulling me off the raft (what else would be in Utah Lake). I giggle and fall asleep again.
6:00 am: My eyes open to sunlight and the sounds of Shane untying our mattress and setting us adrift.
6:10 am: Dave and Chris pull up the anchor to find that we lost it somewhere in the night and had drifted far north.
7:00 am: Breakfast at McDonalds and finally a bathroom break again!

All in all the Utah Lake adventure was a HUGE success. The water was perfect, the bugs weren't a problem, the temperature was comfortable and Amy and I had the best nights rest of anyone. The other four people with us slept on the boat and didn't sleep quite as well. Next time, we'll get multiple mattresses and tie them all together to form a big floating island. Then we'll watch Jaws!





Sunset

Just can't seem to stick the landing.

Weekend Update

Just about everyone flaked out of our little camping trip because of the 60% chance of rain forecast, but Amy and Jamie and I were determined to go anyway. We headed up behind Squaw Peak on thursday night, set up the enormous tent we got from Benton's friend and started the fire before Benton joined us. We spent the majority of the night trying to take scary pictures and finally retired around 1:30. The next morning we had a perfect camping breakfast and then headed back down the mountain.

My breakfast cocktail in my little squishy bowl. Thanks Lisa!

This was our 12 person tent for three people. We had no idea it was this big so we just couldn't stop laughing as we kept folding it out.

Happy Independence Day!

We celebrated with a 4th of July breakfast, Parade, Boating, Pool Party, BBQ and finally Fireworks. I love the 4th of July!