TIME FLIES!!

WOW! Here it is the 1st of October and I am contemplating the first days of our recent vacation! We left home on September 2nd! It seems like it was only a couple weeks ago, but it was nearly a month ago! Our first day of driving took us from eastern Nebraska to bedtime in Park City, Utah. That is a LONG drive, folks!! But, we got there and swam in the pool before hitting the hay and sleeping too late the next morning.

I do not know how many times we have driven along I-80 through Utah, but we have always hurried from one side to the other not stopping. We've seen signs like this one many times and I have to say I understand why they place them...

source: http://www.24saltlake.com/news/100-deadliest-days-utah-roads/

It seems as though you drive along for forever seeing nothing much new! Sometimes there are things off to the side to look at, or places where people have apparently stopped to play in their drowsiness! It sort of looks like they have stopped to play in the sand! This time, Pops received a business call as we were moving across the state and we stopped at a rest stop not too far west of Salt Lake City so as to not drop the call!!

The kids and I piled out to use the facilities. I was confused by the signage on the restroom doors. It instructed people to wash their shoes off before entering the bathrooms if they had been out walking in the salt. WHAT!? Salt? I had thought all of that stuff was Sand!! After using the facilities, all the treekids wanted to explore the salt flats now that we knew that it wasn't just sand! Off they went into the salt and I back to the van to retrieve my camera!!

See? I'm not crazy, am I? Doesn't it just look like sand!?! Several miles east of here we saw other salt flats and they were much whiter. This is very sandy colored!! Even the white sand beaches of Destin look more salt like than these salt flats!!

Pops was headed out to join the treekids, now that he has completed his phone call!

Thank goodness for those business phone calls making us stop to prevent dropped call syndrome!! The treekids had great fun running and playing in the salt and just checking it all out in general! (Poor ol' Blossom's car riding shorts are comfy... but too short! She will look like she is just wearing a mini-dress in the rest of these pictures. I OBVIOUSLY did not pick her comfortable-in-the-van clothes!! Yikes!)

We could hear this jet long before we could see it with all the cloud cover that morning. But, it came lower and it was exciting to see. I am very intrigued by these jets... I think your standard 747 is no longer a big excitement in our family (unless we are all on it)!

They were picking up pieces and running and finding formations that people had left behind.

Crystals of salt - sort of looked like snow - certainly NOT sand when you were out on it!!

Getting down lower to the ground, I discovered that it almost looked like carpet!!

Someone spilled their coffee on this carpet, but sort of carpet-like just the same!!

Oh, uh! And, there it is... the call back for business!! I have a picture of Pops on his cell phone just about every time that we visited the coast in Oregon... looked like sand here, needed a cell phone usage pic!! :)

Bud was searching and running further away than anyone... I think he thought he could get all the way to that mountain range! No one really wanted to ride in the car for another day!!

But, it was time to go and they were called back. They were all searching for the perfect piece of rock salt to keep for themselves and for pieces to share with their rock collecting Geemah and a piece to share with their friends we were hoping to see that night!!

I really enjoyed stopping to see these cool salt flats... and to use the bucket of water to wash all the salt off the bottom of our shoes after we were finished. No wonder the signs asked you to clean off your shoes before using the restrooms! Our soles were caked with salt!

Cleaned up, treasures stashed, belted back in... ready to get to Oregon!!!