Recession Road Trip: Salt Lake City

Our stop over in Salt Lake City(henceforth SLC) was brief but beautiful. On our drive from boulder we stopped in Moab and lingered in the breathtaking arches national park until the sun set. The red earth at sunset was simply beautiful. As it grew too dark and too cold to appreciate the beauty of the place any longer, we packed back into the car and headed north up through Utah to SLC. Iris’s friend from high school, Margaret, was kind and accommodating our late arrival and was thrilled to have us be the first to try out the bed part of her new-to-them pull out couch!

We stayed with Iris's friend, Margaret and her husband in their cozy little box house. Margaret is a meteorologist and loves to bake (and blogs about it) and happily shares her talents and eagerly recommended activities for us not only the SLC area but also for our trip on the whole. She asserts that she’s just trying to add things from her to-do list to ours. Part of her enthusiasm for traveling, and 2-9000c national parks specifically comes from her new-found love her National Parks Passport, a little book where you can stamp each park you’ve been to right into your book. Now when Chelsea got wind of this little passport, she caught the bug “What? You mean I could have been doing this all along?” Needless to say, Margaret was a very engaging and inspiring host during our short stay in SLC.

For our first and only full day in SLC we headed up to visit, well, the salt lake. As recommended to us by Margret one of the best places to see the lake is on Antelope Island, a large island in the middle of the lake with a causeway road that attaches it. Shortly after arriving on the island and after a brief visit to the visitors center, we unloaded our bikes off the back of Frida and went on a two-wheeled exploration of the island.

Although the island is named Antelope Island, we were puzzled to discover its main inhabitant is bison. (and in the visitors center we learned that American bison and buffalo are two names for the same animal, buffalo a slight misnomer genetically speaking but has been in use in the US for considerably longer). While biking around we saw many of these amazingly large mammals (in fact the largest land mammal in the US). The island is desolate, not only because it is a state park and there are few buildings on it, or because the tall grasses are dry and barren, but because it is eerily quiet. Aside from the silent slow-moving bison, we don’t encounter any other living creature in sight or sound.

We headed down to the beach and it was as if we had arrived on another planet. The sand had a very different texture to it than what we were used to, crisp and crunchy as opposed to soft. There were deposits of dried brine shrimp creating a brownish hue where the water met the vast beach, salt crystals jetting out of the edges of puddles and the occasional remnant of a bird carcass. Adding the alien feeling was the fact that we were to only people on the entire beach. As we were leaving, we saw a buffalo, plodding lone and determined along the edge of the beach, a surreal sight indeed.

As the sun started setting we loaded the bikes back onto the car and headed back into the city. Curiosity brought us to the very center of the city and the foundation of SLC, the Mormon Temple. We discovered not only the temple, but a large compound called Temple Square that included several visitors centers, museums and significant buildings. Of course we were not permitted to enter the temple itself, but we were very welcome to walk around. As we walked through at dusk we were asked countless times if we wanted to take a tour by the many sisters roaming the grounds. We politely declined, preferring to self navigate as usual. The buildings were beautiful, but after a little while we were hungry and a little creeped out by the cult like feeling of the place so we headed out to find food.

Using Google SMS (a way for those of us with less than an entire computer for a phone to get google listings texted to us), a favorite tool of Zach’s, we found one of the only vegetarian/vegan restaurants in SLC: Sage’s Cafe. While the food was tasty as well as beautifully displayed in this all-organic, all-vegetarian place, the portions were too small to be satiating. Chelsea and Iris attempted to share an entree in order to compensate for the prohibitive costs, but the portions were pitifully small for just one hungry person, let along two even after we splurged for dessert. After having biked around all day, and wandered the temple all evening, we were not happy to be hungry. Luckily, when we arrived back at Margret’s we found a fresh batch of pumpkin cupcakes she had whipped up for her Halloween party at work. Of course there were a few rejects that the non-vegans among us were only too glad to take care of!

With our time in SLC concluded so soon, we got up early the next morning and breakfasted and planned at the very enjoyable and more haphazardly discovered Sugar House Coffee. After making some plans and arrangements, we began our journey towards Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. Although no match to the ride we took from Colorado to Utah the ride up north was beautiful in its own right with rolling, golden hills and valleys.