Saturday, May 23, Gary went to the Hill AFB Air and Space Museum while I managed to publish my blog and do the laundry. I know how to have fun! After lunch we drove into Salt Lake City about a 20 minute drive from the base which is close to Ogden. Our first stop, as usual, was a trip to the visitor center to plan our time in the city. The US Bus start their tours from there so we decided to hop on. It is a 90 minute tour with 19 stops and you can "hop on and hop off". Since it was so late in the afternoon there weren't going to be any more buses that day so we stayed on for the entire trip and we were given vouchers to come back another day to take advantage of the "hopping". So we perused the city to give us an idea of what we wanted to see more closely. Our driver was originally from New England but has lived in SLC for over 30 years. They play a tape as you go along listing the highlights, he would stop and make his own comments which were far more interesting. We have never been in Salt Lake City before, we'd buzzed past it on the freeway a couple of times and weren't impressed, all you really saw were refineries and industrial areas. The downtown area is really pretty and very clean. When we got back to the visitor center I asked the volunteer there if they had any "fast fact" brochures about SLC that I could use in my blog. He then pulled out a map of downtown and proceeded to tell us where the bars are. I was a bit confused, thought maybe he'd heard bar instead of blog so I told him again what I wanted. He then proceeded to tell us where the best brew pubs were.???????? We must have looked thirsty. We did take his advice though and went to Squatter's Brew Pub, where they make Polygamy Porter that is so good you'll want to take it home to your wives. His joke, not mine.
Sunday, May 25. We decided to go to Antelope Island, the largest of the four islands in Great Salt Lake, now a state park. You cross a causeway that was about 7 miles long to get on the island, of course being a causeway there is water on both sides of the road. There were a number of geo caches along the way we thought we'd pick up along the way, we'd read the previous logs about the warnings of massive bugs and to be sure to wear bug spray. We did heed their warning, but really how many bugs could there be? Maybe a kazillion! Gary managed to step in some muck picking up one geo cache, his shoe stunk so bad I thought we were going to have to throw it away, vinegar did the trick, we didn't have to toss them out. They are called brine flies, which resemble mosquitos (maybe that is just a nicer name) but they didn't bite, just pesky and icky! Prehistoric artifacts have revealed that people inhabited the land more than 6,000 years ago but in the 1800's Kit Carson was the first to explore the island in modern times. He named it Antelope Island after seeing pronghorn antelope on the rangelands. Great Salt Lake is the largest natural lake west of the Mississippi but started as Lake Bonneville in the ice age and was over 200,000 square miles, which now is a mere 75 miles long by 28 miles wide. Four rivers flow into the lake which has no outlet except for evaporation. the minerals that flow into the lake become very salty. They say to take a swim in the lake to test the waters buoyancy, no thanks. There are fresh water springs that can support wildlife, of course the antelope, but bison were introduced in the later 1800's, 12 were brought in, now the herd is over 500, they roam freely around the park. Signs say to stay away from the bison they can be dangerous, well duh, have you seen the size of their heads and horns close up? There are many trails to take from easy to strenuous, so we took Luci on an easy one. We had a nice picnic lunch overlooking the lake and several bison grazing. It was a nice day and the only bugs were on the causeway which normal people just drive on.
Monday, May 26, we decided to take Luci to Doggie Day Care (big mistake but more about that later) so we could spend some time in downtown SLC and not have to worry about her. We got back on the bus, the first (and only) place we got off was the state capitol. It was built in 1916, made of marble with a copper dome, a very beautiful building. Did you know that there is a replica of the Liberty Bell in all of the state capitols in the US? Theirs is located inside, Salem's is located outside on the west side of the building. We went to catch the bus and waited and waited. Finally we got tired of wasting time and decided to walk down the hill. I'm so glad we did, we saw so many beautiful historic homes along the way. The LDS have a conference hall near Temple Square, it is the largest religious building in the US, they give tours but we just glanced in the auditorium, it is so big, you can put two 747's side by side in the room or another perspective, two football fields. Temple Square, 33 acres in downtown, is beautiful. It took 40 years to build the Temple. Brigham Young laid out the city in a grid pattern, starting at the Temple, each block is 1/8th of a mile long so if you walk around the block you've gone a quarter of a mile. We had lunch at an authentic Italian pizza restaurant, the owner had the brick ovens made in Italy and imports all of the ingredients from there too. The crust is very thin, the pie bakes in about 90 seconds. Very good. Gary wanted to visit the Ft. Douglas Military Museum up on the hill close to the University of Utah. The University covers about 1500 acres overlooking the city. Another beautiful historic building which is still being used is the City-County building which was the original capitol. It was built in 1891 and took four years to build. We were impressed with the downtown area, will go back there some day to take a closer look. We prepared to move onto Boise the next day, wanted to get an early start so put away everything not needed.
Tuesday, May 27, we wanted to get up early for our 200 plus drive up to Boise. Well, reveille woke us up at 7:00, much later then we planned, but glad that something woke us up. We ended up leaving about 10 after fueling up. The drive was a bit boring, I read most of the way. Luci as usual was on my lap, but just before Jerome, Id., where we had lunch she got down and laid on the rug. We thought she was acting lethargic because at day care she runs and plays all day. Gary took her out for a potty break and she barfed her breakfast. Remember the day care long story, well there was a sign posted that they had some troubles with dogs getting the stomach flu but felt they had it all eradicated. In hindsight, we shouldn't have left her there. That's hindsight for you. We called the day care, they said it usually lasts 1-3 days, recommended a vet visit if she becomes dehydrated or seems really ill. She barfed off and on until 3:00 am. Gary sat up with her, what a good papa. We are staying at Gowen Field, a joint base National Guard/Air Force. We were following Miss Sally (the GPS), she told us to turn right when we could clearly see the airport on the left, we did as we were told, had to turn around, then when we were in the general area when we turned into the wrong gate which was locked. HMMMM, it always makes Gary happy when we get lost. Fortunately we had a phone number for the base and they directed us without any further mishaps. We did go out to dinner with Ben and Susan that we met in St. George, they live in Boise. Boise is such a cool city, the downtown is very eclectic with all kinds of restaurants and of course the brew pubs. We ate at Bittercreek Ale house, the food was delish! Gary tried one of their beers and I had a margarita that I "slurped" down because of the stress of the day. That too was delish!
Wed, May 28, Luci seems a little better, she still won't eat but was up for a walk. We'd called our vet in Salem, she told us to give her some Pepto Bismo caplets, one adult dose every 3 hours. The first one she barfed up and we absolutely could not get any more down her. Poor baby, every time I came near her mouth she took off. The Oregon National Guard are at Gowen Field training for their deployment to Afghanistan, it was interesting to watch, besides all the PT, some of the exercises they were doing were packing a man on their backs then dropping them to the ground and doing medical aid. Of course they were wearing their full gear in the hot sun running the track. We needed to do some grocery shopping, we found a WINCO, yea, our favorite store. The name stands for Washington, Idaho, Nevada, California and Oregon so we haven't been to one for a while. We got back to the coach, Luci seemed more lethargic, she wasn't eating or drinking anything. I took her to the emergency vet hospital. We were put into a room right away then someone brought a dog in that had been hit by a car so we waited. Finally the vet came in, she was from Salem and was the original owner of Companion Pet Clinic in S. Salem just a about a mile from our house. She examined Luci and thought just an anti-nausea shot would do the trick. She was gone quite a while, someone had brought a dog in that had ingested people drugs. Anyway Luci got her shot, if that didn't work we should bring her back for tests. $$$$$$$
Thursday, May 29, We got an early start for our 300 plus mile trek to Lewiston, Id. It was a beautiful drive along the Salmon River, it started out as a quiet meandering stream through meadow then started down in elevation and became quite a rushing river with many rapids and small waterfalls. It is quite a tourist destination further downstream with many rafting businesses. We stopped in the small town of New Meadows for lunch after driving 150 miles straight. Very unlike us, we usually doddle. We drove the last 150 miles straight through too, going over steep mountain passes arriving at Hells Gate State Park about 4. PDT, we're back in Pacific time now. Luci is feeling much better so we were able to leave Boise without spending our kids inheritance. What a beautiful park right on the Snake River. We picked up our 2,000 geo cache before dinner in the coach. After dinner we took a nice walk along the paved pathway to the Visitor Center and Marina. We were going to have a fire but after much searching and probably cursing, Gary couldn't find the hatchet, we knew where it was in the old coach but that didn't do any good.
Friday, May 30, We started out the day with a 4 mile hike along the river and up the hills here at the park. It was mostly easy but we did have some elevation change to deal with. We went to Bi-Mart (another store we've missed) to buy a hatchet and just relaxed the rest of the day. The campground is starting to fill up for the week-end, many local families camp here. I think this is the nicest State Park I've ever stayed at.
Enjoy the pictures,
TTFN
Gary and Pam
The Kazillion bugs at geo cache
The causeway to Antelope Island
No comments:
Post a Comment