Day 2 - The "Fourth" Was With Us

Today started out with a little continental breakfast and blogging.  We left the Basecamp Motel in S Lake Tahoe shortly after 8 a.m. and headed east on U.S. 50 towards Imlay, NV and Thunder Mountain Park.  But not before stopping at a vista point of Lake Tahoe (very very cold and windy!):

The terrain and temperature changed drastically as we entered into Nevada, from tall trees and cool air to sparse vegetation and a lot of brown shades.  Kristina successfully drove some of the long, straight highway, fresh from our lesson in manual transmissions the night before.  We reached Imlay shortly before noon and began to look for Thunder Mountain Park, which wasn't labeled very well, unless you actually missed the exit.

If you'd like the full description of the origins of Thunder Mountain, there's a link on the right margin of our blog.  In short, somewhere around 1968, a guy poured concrete over his trailer, then collected garbage from nearby sources and built up quite a compound.  You can't walk into any of the buildings right now, but it's still pretty cool to see from the outside looking in.  His son is trying to restore the property.

Many of the walls are constructed out of bottles or large panes of glass (and a lot of car windshields).

We took advantage of the shady picnic table to make a quick lunch and get back on the road towards Utah.

The longer portion of our drive today was filled with our collection of BSB tunes.  For those of you who don't know, the Boys have held special place in our lives for many years.  However, in our reminiscing today about some of the gems that weren't released in the U.S., Kristina pointed out that this one would be severely misconstrued in today's day and age.  (for those of you who are wondering, we made it through 117 of the 128 songs.  KTPSBA!)

A little further down the road, and not quite out of Nevada, we had an instance of "road magic."  Kristina suddenly yelled, "Star Wars moment!" when she saw this sign.  Naturally, Emily pulled over immediately and backed up a few hundred feet to get some shots with this gem:  

 

It had been suggested to us to have some sort of Star Wars nod today during our trip, given its day (May the Fourth).  If you click on the photo, you may notice the graffiti correction.  (No, that wasn't us.)  After several minutes of laughing so hard we cried, we were back on the highway, bound for the Bonneville Salt Flats.

The Salt Flats is a densely packed salt pan in northwestern Utah, a remnant of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville (thanks, Wikipedia).  It is the largest of the many salt flats west of the Great Salt Lake and the location where each year, many world speed records take place.  We stopped for a short photo op, but at this point, our minds were elsewhere as we continued on, racing the sunset to the Great Salt Lake.

This next mission was something Kristina has been talking about since she and Apryle learned it was possible back in the sixth grade… something that became a bucket list item:  to float on her back in the Great Salt Lake while reading a newspaper.  We had a few options on how to access the lake, but we very naturally came upon Saltair Beach and the Great Salt Lake State Park, our proposed entry point.  We suited up (thanks, Paul!), and raced the sunset to accomplish our mission.

There's a short trail on the backside of the marina that leads to a jetty, which we climbed down to get into the water.  We'd been warned several times that the lake would stink, much like sulfur.  We did notice it, but both of us think we've experienced worse smells while vacationing on mid-Atlantic beaches growing up.  We were not offended by the salty smell at all.  We took a pre-float shot with Emily's very new GoPro:

The water was cold, but not unbearable.  The bottom was also rocky, and not mucky like some parts of the lake.  But boy do you float!  It was incredible.  We were giggling like school girls.  We would have stayed much longer if we weren't running out of daylight.  It was such an effortless, relaxing feeling.

There was a lot of excitement.  Emily realized after we looked at the photos that we are holding hands to prevent from drifting apart, like otters.  And we were super excited.  Emily also realized that even though this float was not on her bucket list initially, it should have been.  Maybe it's one of those list items that you add to then immediately cross off as complete?

Just in time, before the sun went down.

We took a short video.  If it's choppy, that means your device isn't processing it at a high enough speed.  Apologies for the audio also.  The waterproof housing doesn't lend itself to great dialogue recording.  

After a quick shower at the state park bath house, we cruised into Salt Lake City for some photos, had a late breakfast-for-dinner at Jim's Family Restaurant in South Jordan, and then settled in for the night.  A big thank you shout out to Heather for inviting us to stay in her home!