Hey Folks,
Okay, so you know you’re way overdue posting to the blog
when faithful blog readers call to ask if everything is okay, “you haven’t
killed each other have you”? - Yes the question mark goes outside the
quotes, I checked. On the contrary, we’re
loving it here. We’re getting the lay of
the land and feeling quite at home in the land of Latter Day Saints. We’ve noticed some things however that are out
of the ordinary.
1. There are tulips
everywhere. Everyone has them in their
yard and you see them all over in public areas as well. They even have an annual Tulip Festival with
over 250,000 of the bulbs in blooming glory over 55 acres of landscaped grounds.
Margo and I went and joined the masses last weekend at said festival. The trek and subsequent pics deserve a blog
post all it’s own. Margo will bless you
with that one next week – she promises - but here’s a sneak peak at a few of
her shots.
2. Seagulls. When we were in Virginia we saw them everywhere. Not out of the ordinary certainly since we
were only miles from the ocean. However,
the last time I checked the map I noticed Utah is quite a distance from the sea but the
little squawkers are all over. Then I
realized, there’s a large salty body of water nearby, the perfect habitat for a
coastal bird, even if the coast is far removed.
We took a ride to the lake today. It’s pretty great and only 10 miles from our
front door. We checked it out from the Salt Lake State Park and Marina
on the eastern shore. I went down to the
water's edge and tasted it and indeed it’s quite salty – actually 8 times saltier then
the ocean.
I’ll have to get back with you
on the reported resulting added buoyancy properties when we head back to go swimming after it
warms up a bit more. There's a large beach and marina which right now is only half full.
 |
| Tasting the waters |
 |
| Margo on the observation deck. |
Here’s your quick primer on the Great Lake. It has no drain. Three rivers lead into it and deposit tons of
minerals annually but the only way for the water to leave is by evaporation. Between the inflow and evaporation it stays
about the same size give or take a few hundred square miles a year. The minerals and salts stay behind so it gets
saltier every year. You can’t see the
other side so the initial western explorers thought at first it was the Pacific Ocean.
Then they downloaded Google Maps and figured it out. No one
fishes in the lake as no fish can survive.
The only life that can prosper are little brine shrimp and brine
flies. Opening a bait shop nearby would
be foolish so there are none but car washes are abundant - which brings me full circle back to the
gulls. It’s good to be a gull in these
parts, all the brine shrimp you can eat and rock star status. They are actually the state bird. What? State bird? How's that?
Legend has it that when Brigham Young and his 4,000 followers arrived in the fall of 1847 they were quite hungry. They planted their crops in the fertile valley in the spring of 1848 but had to endure early frosts and an invasion of crickets that ate everything in their path. The settlement would have been doomed except for the gulls who appeared and saved the day. The validity of this legend is questioned but it's still a great story and the reason the Mormon religion so admires the gull. The "Miracle of the Gulls" statue downtown is a testament to that.
So, there ya go. We’re
back and you're getting educated again. Good
thing we didn’t kill each other huh. See
ya next week for the tulip issue.
