Fledgling Explorers

The only stop we made between Moab and Salt Lake City was the small town of Price, which was the setting for the Great Brain books. This was one of my favorite series as a child and I bought them anew for Cleo and Ian who loved them as much as I did. The books tell the story of an early twentieth century family in Utah whose middle son is a prodigal if unethical mastermind. The books were popular but never to the extent that there would have been a museum or some tourist attraction in the author's home town to commemorate them. The modern town of Price was pleasant enough, surrounded on every side by low mountains that could be seen from every intersection, but bore no resemblance whatsoever to the bucolic frontier town described by Fitzgerald. We drove around for a little while to get the feel of a typical Utah town and then got back onto the highway.

By the time we rolled into Salt Lake City our stomachs were growling and it was clear our first stop had to be dinner. Salt Lake City had one food hall and since we didn't want to call around to find an open table on a Saturday evening that seemed to be our best bet. The HallPass food hall was located in a vibrant open-air mall called The Gateway and fortunately for us we emerged from the parking garage on the opposite side from our destination. That took us through the center of the mall underneath a beautiful installation of colorful umbrellas suspended overhead, where we passed a Japanese hot pot called Mr. Shabu. We spontaneously decided this would be a better bet than anything we were likely to find at the food hall. There was some whispered discussion regarding our lack of a reservation before we were shown to one of the few open tables in the large restaurant. We loaded up at the well-stocked food station and gorged ourselves for the next hour. We hadn't realized how much we'd missed authentic Asian food over the last three weeks. On the way out there was a long line for tables, so clearly we'd made it just under the wire. We did check out HallPass and it seemed to be a rather weak version of a food hall, with a layout resembling a sports bar and mostly generic greasy food. Afterwards we went to the upper level which had some recreational spots and nice views of the surroundings.

Our Airbnb was in a quiet residential neighborhood south of the city center. There was a surprising number of rainbow flags displayed on front porches, including our own. I later learned that despite its conservative reputation, Salt Lake City has one of the highest percentage of gay residents among major US cities. Perhaps that's because gay people throughout Utah gravitate towards the largest city. Our place was the basement of a rather generic-looking home with an attractive garden and a private entry. Despite the subterranean location our space was bright and cheerful and the kids made themselves at home promptly.

On Sunday morning, which also happened to be Independence Day, we went straight to the Wheeler Sunday Market at Wheeler Farm in the southern part of town. The farmers market section was pretty good, on a par with the markets in Flagstaff and Santa Fe we'd visited the previous two weeks, and there was an excellent crafts market and an enormous play structure. The kids climbed around in the playground and occasionally wandered over to us for bites of the food we'd collected from the various booths and trucks. Afterwards we checked out some creative artwork which included a potter throwing vessels right at his booth.

The centerpiece of Salt Lake City is Temple Square, a ten acre rectangle that was selected by Mormon prophet Brigham Young upon the group's arrival in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Within the site are the majestic Salt Lake Temple and numerous other architecturally impressive buildings that are central to the processes of the Mormon church. The area is somewhat reminiscent of the Vatican City on a smaller scale. On the day of our visit virtually everything worked against us being able to see the interiors of these buildings. It was a Sunday, many activities were still curtailed because of the COVID epidemic, and the square was in the midst of an enormous renovation project that had begun in 2019 and is not projected to be complete until 2025. We still had an enjoyable walk through the square and could appreciate the beautiful grey stone and white spires of the Assembly Hall and the glistening aluminum roof of the remarkable Mormon Tabernacle. Unfortunately the Temple itself was covered in scaffolding and surrounded by a dirty Plexiglas barrier, so that the only decent view could be obtained from across the street.

The Utah State Capitol, a few blocks north of Temple Square, is a typical American Neoclassical capitol building in the model of the United States Capitol. We'd already visited similar buildings in Wisconsin and Colorado and chose to just drive by as we only had one day in Salt Lake City. We then fortuitously stumbled onto the single road that leads up to Ensign Downs, a small residential enclave filled with large, stately homes that look down over the city. A hiking trail leads from the hillside to the summit of Ensign Peak, one of the highest points in the area and the site at which Brigham Young and other Mormon leaders laid out their vision of the city they planned to build. We were already flirting with triple digit temperatures and it was an easy decision to forgo the twenty minute scramble to the top.

Just east of downtown the Gilgal Sculpture Garden is hidden in the interior of a relatively nondescript mixed residential and commercial block. If we hadn't known it was there we would have walked right past the innocuous concrete path that led to the entrance. The garden represents the work of one devoted individual who built the eccentric and religious sculptures in his own backyard. After his death the property was eventually turned over to the city and made into a public park. Among the more notable works are a sphinx with the head of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith and a stone archway that threatens to drop an enormous boulder onto the head of anyone who dares to stand beneath it.

We were working our way through my list of things to see in Salt Lake City faster than I expected. I had to choose between the Red Butte botanical garden and the Tracy Aviary and went with the latter because we'd been to the botanical garden in Santa Fe just a week earlier. The aviary is located within Liberty Park just a few blocks south of the sculpture garden. It was a nice enough place but a little sleepy and quite hot in the peak sun of early afternoon. The highlights were some stunning black crowned cranes that welcomed us with a symphony of honks and the opportunity to hand feed Australian rainbow lorikeets. Despite the keeper's repeated warnings that the birds didn't like to be touched, the colorful animals had no reservations about perching on Cleo's head. Oddly enough I have quite a collection of videos with birds landing on Cleo's head, although I think this was the first that took place outside of China.

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We couldn't take more than an hour and a half under the sun in the aviary, so it was still mid-afternoon when we found ourselves back on the sidewalk trying to decide what to do. I knew I wanted to check out the Great Salt Lake, even though my research indicated it was foul-smelling and full of bugs. The most interesting part of the lake seemed to be Antelope Island, but it was a full hour's drive just to get there. Eventually we decided to go for it since the kids were probably better off having a nap anyway. The island is by far the largest in the lake and appears deceptively close to the city, but the only access is via the causeway that leads from the eastern shore of the lake to the northern tip of the island. The drive over the causeway is one of the best ways to see the unbroken expanse of the lake, a bizarre-appearing mixture of open water and salt flats with blue-grey mountains visible on distant shorelines.

Soon after we passed the park entrance booth we found a wide sandy beach with practically no one else around. As we walked towards the lake we found ourselves sinking through a layer of salt into sulphurous mud. We walked out as far as we dared until the mud was sucking our footwear to the extent that our feet were coming out of them. It seemed a lot of other people had had the same problem. There were deep footprints in the mud around us and on close inspection a few of them had abandoned sneakers at the bottom. Apparently some folks had panicked at the thought of sinking further into the mud and had sacrificed their footwear to make it back to the safety of the sand. Even more ominous were dozens of bird carcasses that became more frequent as we got closer to the shoreline. Apparently the salt water prevents them from decomposing so even birds that died months ago will wash up along the shore fairly intact.

One of the attractions of Antelope Island is the herd of some seven hundred bison, the descendants of a small population brought there in 1893 by the owner of the land to protect the species from overhunting and extermination. Bison are often confusingly referred to as American buffalo, although this is a misnomer as bison and buffalo belong to different genuses within the bovine family. True buffalo are native to Africa and Asia, but early European settlers mistook the bison for buffalo despite there being numerous substantial differences between the species. The park ranger at the booth had told me the best place to see bison was along the eastern shore of the island. We set off down the road in hopes of spotting one or maybe two of the animals, and were shocked when after just a quarter of a mile we came across the entire herd grazing along the area between the road and the shoreline. We pulled over along with a few other cars and got out for a better look, of course maintaining a respectful distance from the potentially dangerous animals. A little bit further down the road we had to stop because a group of bison was crossing in front of us. It wasn't as spectacular as the experiences one is prone to have on rural highways in Wyoming or the Dakotas where enormous herds can congregate around cars for hours, but I have no doubt that experiences like that lie somewhere in our future as well.

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We kept driving until the highway turned into a dirt road after the Fielding Garr Ranch but didn't see anything else remarkable and elected to return the way we came. Before we reached the bison again we turned onto a promising side road which turned out to be the access to the Frary Peak Trailhead. It was far too late to be considering any real hiking but we had just a short walk to a rocky promontory with great views over the lake.

We drove back across the causeway immensely grateful that we had found the time and the motivation to visit Antelope Island, which had turned out to be one of the most rewarding experiences of our trip. As usual the decision to push a little harder and further rather than take the easier path had provided us with invaluable memories. We wiped and scrubbed as much of the stinking Salt Lake mud off our shoes and drove straight back to the city center for dinner. We had a little trouble finding a restaurant that was open on July Fourth but eventually located the Copper Onion, a decent New American bistro. They only had an outdoor table available which we gladly accepted despite the blanket of hot air that enveloped us, as we were still afraid that some of the odor of the lake might still be clinging to us.

The original plan was to head to a park downtown to see a fireworks show, but by the time we got back home to change we were so wiped out that we couldn't summon the motivation. I felt a pang of guilt when we began hearing the explosions and the kids ran outside in excitement, but we were still able to see some of the display from the driveway. There will be countless more firework shows but it could be awhile before we have another chance to get up close to a herd of bison.