Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Spiral Jetty

On black friday Frank and I decided to go on a little adventure.
We decided to go up near
the site of the "golden spike"
for some 4 wheeling.

Gorgeous mountains...can't resist.

Just a short jaunt.

We found the national park that is the site of the final spike in the transcontinental railroad.

This took place in Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869, 
We saw the train tracks.



The commemorative plaque.


And the replica golden spike.
the real golden spike was only in that spot for a few minutes...fun fact.
There are usually trains there but they were out for servicing.

As we spoke to the guide there
I saw a picture of the spiral jetty
Ever since I saw a picture of this after a friend visited,
I have wanted to see it.

So...detour!

It was super cool to see.
The first thing I did, of course, was to walk the spiral.
I mean...there's a spiral there, so it must be walked to the very center!
Am I right?

My view as I stand at the center of the Jetty
The first thing Frank did was lick a rock.
Yep, salty.
weirdy.

We had fun walking around on the bed of the great salt lake.
I wish the camera could pick up what my eyes were seeing
which was that the whole area just sparkled like diamonds
Or like salt crystals, really.
It was very very sparkly and pretty.


We met some folks who were serious rock hounds and they showed us all the cool stuff
sticking out of the ground there.

So we started wandering and looking.
The whole area is covered in these weird winding hills...


And sticking out of these projections are clear rocks.
They said that these clear rocks were gypsum?
something like that...
anyway, they were so cool!
They stick out of the ground like little spikes

See the clear spikes sticking up?

and when you pull on them, some of them are quite large!

We came across an area that looked like sand
but when you got up to it, it was really a large area of foam

I saw what I thought was some dried out weeds.
Nope.
A desiccated bird.
There were quite a few of these.
Super weird looking.
*sad face*

We wandered there for way longer than we planned.


more gorgeous mountains


It was definitely worth the trip!

3 comments:

  1. Sounds like my kind of day. Love it!

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  2. I don't understand what the spiral jetty is. Is it naturally occurring? Are those rocks or is it sand? I can't figure it out. Also, the clear rocks are very cool. My kids always wanted to go there when they were younger and crazy about trains, we should have gone.

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    Replies
    1. It's an art installation...not natural. Here's a link: http://www.diaart.org/sites/main/spiraljetty

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