10/11 The Great Salt Lake

The forecast proved to be right for last night, with rain on the roof while we were sleeping. It really doesn't wake me up, but Bob always seem to wake up for it! After a little breakfast, we packed up and headed south again. We did have to scout out a place to get some propane in our tanks, but we have an app for that! The Campendium app shows propane stations if you set the search for that. We had reserved a campsite for the night at the Great Salt Lake State Park, so we plugged that into our GPS and headed that way. It's right on the south shore of the lake, just west of the city. ​

This is always a crap shoot to reserve a spot in a place sight unseen.  We use Campendium app, along with AllStays and recreation.gov to try to weed out the worst places and find the best places.  But we are always relying on online reviews and photos, and we all know that you might get a distorted view from that. We also use the satellite views on maps to get a better feel for the place. We weren't sure of what to expect for this State Park because the views left us a little puzzled.  Well, we soon found out that this is not your standard campground.  We took the designated exit off I-80 and found ourselves on a partially paved road along a narrow strip of land between the lake and the interstate.  We had a lot of bumps so it was a slow go to keep the trailer from rebounding onto the shoreline!   We reached the end of the road, and found a parking lot and visitor center right along the road by  our campsite #1.  I think there are only 5 sites and they are all in use.  We are overlooking a section of the lakeshore, which is quite different than most lakes!  There is a large island, Antelope Island, within view, and if you turn around to look to the south you will see the interstate, mountains and a large, very large, copper mine.

Since we arrived fairly early in the day, we took off to go downtown to the Mormon Tabernacle.  It was a little late to be getting in before it closed, but we still looked around a bit.  There was some scaffolding set up so the grand view was obscured.  Instead, we went across the street to the Mormon History Museum and the Family History Center.  Both are beautiful buildings with very kind and attentive individuals working there.  We didn't know what to expect at the Family History Center, because we are not well-versed in geneology searches.  But it was so welcoming and friendly, with our own volunteer to get us logged onto the computers and begin the basic search.  It was really kind of fun to see what already exists in their data base from public records and the research of other family members.  If you haven't visited there, it's worth a stop.  We didn't have very long before closing, but the work can be continued on our own if we want.  

​We wandered a little bit off course to find groceries and gas on the way back to the trailer, probably driving twice as far as we needed to! 

I think that this campsite might rank high in our list of unusual places!  The landscape is so alien, the wind blows a lot, the only lifeforms we see are seagulls and the occasional person!  You need to come here!