So, soon after waking up, I realize it's just me again. That's the very odd thing about hostels: I met several people who may end up being friends for life, yet you only get to meet them for a little while before separating: everyone has their own journey to take.
I ask Bryce what he intends to do next. He, like myself, only intended on staying 1 night, and has been here ever since.
"I heard the band last night was pretty good, so I'm thinking of staying again and going down there to see what's up."
"There were also a lot of cute girls."
"Now you're speaking more my language."
I say bye to him and head outside to do the same with Glen and Robert, another fellow hosteler who I'd played pool with at the bar last night. And now I'm on my way to Salt Lake City, the capitol of Utah.
I'd like to go ahead and take this moment to correct myself on an error I've been making: I've been making fun of all these capitol buildings for trying to look like the White House, and that's been wrong of me. I meant to make fun of them for looking like the U.S. Capitol building: I apologize.
Among all the impersonators, I'd say SLC does a pretty good job though. At this point, I'm considering giving an award for "Looks Most Like the Actual U.S. Capitol Building" at the end of my trip.
While it wasn't directly outside the capitol, it's interesting to me to see this painted bison. I see a few more around town as my trip goes on. They're interesting to me because my home town of Aiken does a similar thing, except with horses. How I think it works is you pass horse statues out to different monumental areas around town and the people in charge of that area get to paint/design it however they want, making it a bit of a tourist attraction.
I'm pretty sure this memorial was for Mormon soldiers. At some point, someone went around to all the Mormon towns and tried to convince as many Mormon men as possible to fight in a war. I forget which war, who the guy was, and how many went, but it was definitely important enough they deserved a statue.
This is a statue of the Native American Massassoit who helped prevent the failure of Plymouth Colony. That's what Wikipedia said at least. Wikipedia also said his name was spelled, "Massasoit", but that's not what the plaque on the statue says.
The SLC capitol building has a courtyard in the middle of it. Unfortunately, the sidewalks were closed off; it looked like people were trying to film something. So I only got awkward angles of 3 more statues. I'm especially upset I couldn't see the one with his back to me as he clearly had a sword in his hand, and I'd yet to see a statue with that.
And then there's this...
...I don't even know what this is about, but I'm so upset about not getting to see a statue with a sword I don't care to guess.
Now, I head to see the Great Salt Lake. Having lived in SLC for college (no, not BYU: Neumont) it surprises even me I've never seen the lake. I'd seen it flying over a couple times (I was flying, not the lake) but never up close. I want to find the perfect spot to take pictures of it. Some place magnificent, timeless. Traveling the interstate tangent the lake, I find it. It seems to be a small island or peninsula jutting out of the mainland, populated by a lone rocky spire, looking like a lighthouse. I must take pictures from there.
Turning around and taking a frontage road, I find the route, unmarked, as to avoid drawing attention to its mystical, holy shit these are some big rocks. This is rougher than the Capitol Reef road I took. That rock's bigger than my fists! My tires are gonna explode - all 4. They're just gonna simultaneously commit suicide and then the towing company is gonna charge me for 8 tires because there's'll need replacing after getting me out of here. Is this even worth it? Yes. I must get the timeless, beautiful shots I'm looking for, and they lie on that peninsula, island, thing!
Pushing forward, my tires don't explode. A few other cars are parked here as well. I see some friends, 2 a couple, getting their picture taken against the rocks by the others. Also, a bride getting her wedding photos taken. As I park the car and open my door, I think what a nice, romantic, oh man, it smells like garbage. This place, literally, smells like rotting garbage. I could swear there's a landfill next to me. How are these other people all smiling? And why would you choose to have your wedding photos in a place that smells like this? I hurry to take some pictures of the lake:
One thing I've always wanted to do if I visited the Great Salt Lake is taste it to make sure it really is salty. Don't question my logic, you don't know what sort of conspiracy might be happening! But not anymore. I'm not taking a single lick out of water that smells like someone crapped all over it. This land is not at all what I'd expected it to be; here's where someone did doughnuts on the beach:
And as for the beautiful, rocky spire? Up close it looks more like the remnants of a demolished building:
...and it's been vandalized...
Although, to be fair, the artwork was probably the best part of the experience. That or the view of the mountains next door.
And so, this unnamed penisland (peninsula + island, I never figured out which one it was) becomes the fourth, and most treacherous, place I've 4x4ed my 98 sedan.
I'm very lucky in SLC. Because I went to school here, not only does my friend Jake volunteer to host me, but my friend Jen sets up 2 potential host for me all on her own: Vee and Nic. Nic agrees to host me before I even have time to ask Vee, so I stay with him for the weekend. Heading to his apartment complex, I park out front and wait for him to meet me. I notice 3 police officers outside: I begin planning my speech for when they ask me why I'm loitering. 5-10 minutes later they leave and Nic meets me. After showing me where to park, we head upstairs and he says, “Sorry it took so long. The police were here because my bike got stolen.”
Oh...I'm normally on the accused side of crime. Being in a party on the victim side is something I'm not used to.
The police had already found the bike and caught the perpetrator, whom they knew on a first name basis, and he claimed Nic let him use the bike. They wanted to take pictures of Nic's bike lock, which had very clearly been cut through, to, I can only assume, let the perpetrator know what a bad liar he was.
After catching up on job positions and such, Nic says,
“So I don't know if you wanna go out tonight and see the town or just take it easy and stay in or what.”
“What do you normally do on a Saturday night?”
“Get drunk and play WoW.”
“That actually sounds like a lot of fun.”
And so, we head to the liquor store and then the grocery store to collectively buy rum, vodka, pizza, diet coke, and garlic bread.
At some point during a night of watching The Social Network, catching up on my blog, and Nic teaching me about WoW, I get texts from Kenji and Ger. Kenji tells me he and Ger found a hostel downtown and ate burgers at Carl's Jr. for dinner. Ger tells me they looked at some Mormon churches and that Kenji is headed to Las Vegas tomorrow but he (Ger) is thinking of going to Antelope Island. I tell him that sounds like fun and Nic agrees, so we all decide to go together.
Falling asleep during Game of Thrones, which I've somehow never managed to see a lot of, I wake up to have Nic tell me he won't be able to go. He got a text from a friend this morning asking to help move furniture. He doesn't need my help, but he won't be able to go to Antelope Island.
I head to the hostel, only 7 minutes away, and pick up Ger. I ask about Carl's Jr., and he ask me what charbroiled is as well as telling me the Teriyaki Burger there was far too salty for he and Kenji. I'm not surprised: anything "Teryaki" that's not Chinese food is normally oversauced.
I try to get us into Antelope Island with the National Parks Pass, but it's no good: it's a state park and they don't play that, “But the federal government is in charge of the state government,” BS. Good for them: power to the people.
The entrance gate gives us a pamphlet. Ger reads while I drive, “There are over 500 bison on the island. They don't say how many antelope there are though.” The island being named after them, one can only assume a fair amount. Yet, the first animal we see is this guy...
...or girl; I'm not a bisonologist. The first bison isn't particularly big. I mean, he's big compared to us, but not big by bison standards. A little ways over is a larger one we decide to get closer to.
I can't help but feel, as we get closer, that he's staring at us. We don't walk into the grass, just along the road, but he seems to be turning his head as we do this. I note it to Ger.
A couple other cars of people who were pulled over decide to leave: now it's just us. The bison moves a little closer...
Ger wants a picture of how close he is to the bison. I take it for him...and then the bison moves a little closer.
“Ger, I'm gonna walk away casually now.”
“I've dealt with some cattle before, and they are pretty dumb. He probably just wants another food source.”
“I'm not sure how fast they are so I'm not sure if I can run yet.”
I take one last picture while walking back to the car:
Truth be told, he didn't snarl or scrape the ground, so we probably could've just let him walk up to us and pet him, but I don't think me or Ger were willing to take the risk.
As Ger said, it seems he did just want a new food source, because he crossed the road to eat more rather than trampling us to death. It gave us a good opportunity for better pictures.
It's now I'll bring up the fact that bison are often mistakenly called buffalo in America. I know this, because Ger made sure I knew it. Several times I would talk about buffalo and he would correct me.
“I'm glad that buffalo didn't chase us down.”
“Bison.”
“Woah, look at all those buffalo there!”
“Oh wow, that's a lot of them. Bison.”
“How many buffalo are on the island?”
“500. And bison.”
We decide to take a 5 mile or so trail that goes around a peak on the island. I get good pictures of the Salt Lake and the island that don't involve having to breath through my mouth:
On our way down the mountain we find an antelopic artifact:
It's definitely real, but we can't figure out whether it was placed there for tourist to see or was possibly picked up and dropped by a bird. Either way, leaving the trail we discuss the fact we've yet to see any antelope. We drive to a shorter trail and walk around to look for them.
As far as the eye can see, no antelope on Antelope Island. They even have viewfinders we use to look at distant dots. No antelope, just bicyclist riding through a herd of buffalo.
"Bison."
We decide to leave, but before we can, I decide, "No. We're going by the Visitors Center to ask them where all the antelope are." We head there and a ranger tells us, "Weeell, the antelope are a little tricky. The bison, there are 500 of, but the antelope, there are only 100 remaining, so they're a little more difficult to find. But I saw 2 this morning by the office, so if you head by there, they may still be around.
While in the Visitors Center, Ger does some souvenir shopping. "It is tradition to buy something stupid," he says, so he buys a small stuffed bison. We also are in want of bison meat: when on the 2nd trail, we met a woman who mentioned the stores around here sold bison burgers and we've both wanted one since then. I asked Nic, but he wasn't sure where we'd get such a thing. In the Visitors Center, however, are several flavors of bison jerky. I pick up one in particular that says, "Buffalo Jerky," and on the ingredients, "Buffalo meat," but on the package is a very clear picture of a bison. I point it out to Ger and say,
"Look! They call it buffalo, too!"
"Are they the same thing?"
"They must be. Either that or someone at the package factory made a huge mistake."
We leave the Visitors Center and head to the office building: nothing.
"There are 2 horses. That woman probably saw them and thought they were antelope."
"She isn't very good at her job then."
"She's a horrible Park Ranger."
"Maybe the bison ate all the antelope."
"Yeah, they were tired of being eaten by us."
"'You guys get an island named after you and all we get is turned into burgers.'"
"They need to rename this place Bison Island."
"Yup. The only reason they didn't is because it didn't have as good a ring to it."
Tired of searching, we call it quits, leaving Antelope Island without ever having seen, "Ger, over there!"
Far off is an antelope, walking in a field. I pull over and we get pictures even though he's horribly hard to see (he's on the horizon of the grass).
A couple passing cars slow down to see what we're looking at, but I doubt they see him because they keep driving on. Ger says, "As Kenji would say, 'I am satisfied, we can go now.'"
Passing several cars on the way out, Ger says, "You lose...and you lose." Indeed, they all lose. We may be the only people leaving the island today to have seen an antelope. Well, except for the people who saw these two bastards just standing by the entrance on our way out:
Spiteful though we are of the 2 antelope who revealed themselves to just anybody, it was definitely a full, fun day. On the land bridge on the way out though, I pull over, realizing,
“I've got one more thing to do.”
“What is it?”
“I've always wanted to taste the lake to make sure it's salty.”
Ger laughs and watches from the car. I run down towards the water. Very suddenly, the sand sinks in. The beach is soaked to the point I step several inches into it. I've got mud all over my shoes now, but I must persist. Getting closer to the edge, I notice a thick rim of algae along the entire edge of the lake: I can't risk drinking out of that. I don't wanna go all the way into the water either though. Maybe...maybe I can drink out of a footprint. Looking over, other people had also been to the edge of the lake. Their footprints, filling with algae free water that had seeped out of the mud. I bend over, put a finger tip in, and...yep, it's salty. There is no conspiracy, that is definitely salt water. The Mormons, hundreds of scientists, and anyone who's ever swam in it were not lying.
* * * * *
Tonight is Ger's last night in America, so it would be a good thing if he ate somewhere that didn't suck. Unfortunately, during my college encounter with Utah, that proved often difficult: Utah's taste doesn't seem to be anywhere else's taste. Luckily, Nic has been here a while and has the same issue with the place, so he knows some good restaurants. Ger says for his last night he'd like Mexican or a good burger. There's a southwestern place called Z'Tejas Nic says is good, and it's got a very American looking burger on the menu, so it's an all around good choice. Picking up Ger again, I tell him,
“Ger, this is Nic. Ger, how do you say your name?”
He gives the proper pronunciation.
“If it's alright with you, I'm just gonna call you Harold.”
“Yes, that works.”
Z'Tejas was very good; a pleasant surprise in Utahan cuisine. Ger notices another difference in America at the restaurant:
“Why are there no prices by the beers?”
“It's all alcohol. They don't want you to know how much you're spending.”
“I want to know how much I'm spending.”
During dinner, Ger brings up he hasn't tried cheesecake yet. The waiter tells us they're all out, “And that's so sad, because it was so good.” Oh, thanks for making us feel bad about it.
Luckily, our guide, Nic, knows there's a Cheesecake Factory a few blocks down. Nic also tells us, “I remember the first time I heard of the Cheesecake Factory, I thought it was a place where all they served was cheesecake, and you'd go there and it would be like, cheesecake everywhere, all over the walls and on every table. Then when I went in and found out they served actual food, it was kind of a disappointment.”
We take a train there and I tell them about the time some friends and I didn't have time to buy tickets to catch a train leaving SLC for Sandy. Police came on mid ride and checked my roommate Kent's ticket first. Realizing it was from earlier in the day, they started to hassle him about it before even checking the rest of ours. I just held out my old ticket for them to see and they didn't take the time to look any closer. Luckily, Kent had bought a family pass and the station we bought it from had ambiguous language in defining the length of time the ticket was active. Kent had noticed this, so the police came all the way back to Sandy with us just to look at the words and agreed, it was ambiguous, so he was free to go. My ticket had no ambiguous language that I know of, I was just lucky.
While waiting for a table at the factory, an employee ask us, “If you guys have any questions about our flavors or other cheesecake questions, feel free to ask me!” So I asked her, “How is cheesecake made?” Apparently, that wasn't the sort of question she was offering for, because the answer she gave us was, “They make it in California, put it on a freezer truck, and ship it to us.” I must be a great chef then, because I've ordered all sorts of things to-go before.
Sitting down, our waitress is all smiles and positive attitude, a bit like the Starbucks baristas I'd recently been introduced to. Nic notes, “It looked like it was draining her soul to smile.” Ger and I agree.
The cheesecake is good for everyone. I even have enough to put in the fridge (my trunk). Ger says, “Watch, you are going to forget about that for 2 weeks.” “And I bet you I'll still eat it.”
We drop Ger off at the hostel, say some last goodbyes and good lucks, and head back to Nic's. I was only planning on staying the first night, but Nic was nice enough to offer another if I needed it. I decide to take advantage of the opportunity to do some laundry, but he lets me know, “The drying is gonna require some time. It might take, like, 2 or 3 cycles to completely dry.”
So, I put in a Game of Thrones DVD, catch up on some blogging, and do 2 or 3 cycles of laundry. While waiting, I get a message on Facebook...it's a link from Ger...buffaloes and bison are not the same animal...damn it.
* * * * *
And now for something extra! My Dutch friend Ger knows about my blog and gave me some of his pictures to share:
The photo of Ger, Kenji, and I together at Canyonlands; many of you saw this one on Facebook.
The outside of the Lazy Lizard: very sketchy looking!
The inside of the Lazy Lizard: not as sketchy looking...still kind of sketchy looking, though.
The trailer Glen sleeps in: he's done cabinet woodwork and frame reinforcement on it.
Ger and I trying to get close pictures of the bison.
Ger and I learning bison can run 40 miles an hour after we'd already worried about it.
Me running through the dry sand.
Me walking through the wet sand.
Me after realizing the water is actually salty. Hope you enjoyed!
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