Day 25-June 25, 2015-Great Salt Lake and Baseball
Hot again today-up to 98.
Drove to Antelope Island State Park which is surrounded by the Great Salt Lake which is 75 miles long, 30 miles wide but only 28’ deep at its deepest. The largest natural lake west of the Mississippi, it’s at least six times saltier than the ocean because of all the minerals in the lakes that flow into it and it has no outlet. The water evaporates and the salt is harvested and sold during the year. It’s too salty for fish but great for brine flies, mosquitoes and brine shrimp which attract various waterfowl. The sand is unique to the lake, called Oolitic sand formed by the minerals and brine shrimp decay. There’s one road in and out and the scenery is stunning. The lake seemed to change color, from blue to white to yellow depending on which way we turned. Very hazy day, too. We saw a five antelope in the salt flats and a herd of buffalo near the water’s edge. Each year they have a buffalo roundup where they count them and sell some. Stopped for lunch at one of the pullovers. But the best thing for me was at the visitor center. In the eaves of the building are dozens of bird nests and they all seemed to have babies ready, willing and eager to be fed. Mama would swoop down and three or four little mouths would pop open. I got a great video of them being fed. We only saw three or four other cars on the road on the island. Off the island was a totally different story, there was a lot of traffic, this is a busy place. Hill Air Force Base and Museum is near the campground and sometimes we hear jets overhead but never in time to see them. Back to camp for dinner and then off to the ball game.
Lindquist Field is the home of The Ogden Raptors and less than three miles from our campground. A small field with fierce fans, they’re the Triple A affiliate of the LA Dodgers. Tonight they played the Idaho Falls Chukkers and beat them 11-8 in an exciting game. We usually get seats on the 1st base line but we knew the sun would be on us all night so we sat almost behind home plate, a bit to the left and there was shade. Good seats, two rows back, but I don’t like the net in my face. I don’t like to get hit with balls either, though. The view was great, to left field was the scoreboard with the mountains in the background and the Mormon Temple to the right. As it got darker the temple lit up. We drove by it after the game and it was beautiful. I noticed gorgeous gardens on all sides of it that I didn’t notice in the daylight. Back to camp to get ready to go again tomorrow.