Spiral Jetty II

Yes…another weekend to getaway from the horrors of exams, labs, and other scholastic tortures. Friends who were willing to come met up at our place around 2pm. Christian generously rented a 4X4 SUV to assist the transportation. It came in handy so we all didn't have to cram like sardines into one steel box on wheels. Soon we were all packed up and ready to go. Laurie, Bryan, Mihaela, and I rode in my car, and Christian, James, and Emily rode in the rental. We stopped at a restaurant downtown to take the edge off the hunger before having to resort in consuming our junk food preserves.


Our rendezvous point was at the golden spike national monument, where we stretched our legs, and tapped a kidney. Then came the excitement of blazing on dirt roads dodging potholes, and cow pies. The road became bumpy towards the end, and the last mile or so got really bad, and I am soooo thankful for my car having high clearance, and evenly loaded w/ people and gear. (Critically dampened system…yay!)








The skies were pretty dramatic with interesting clouds, and lighting. I noticed that the Salt Lake had risen quite a bit since my last trip about a year ago. Nonetheless, I stripped my shoes off and scampered off in the red algae waters. I found an interesting chunk of sandstone w/ a steel arrowhead lodged inside under the water, and couldn't help but to retrieve it. Around this time Christian and his group arrived, and started exploring the land art of the spiral jetty. As the sun was setting we stopped at the old oil drilling ruins, and took a number of pictures of us all playing on the giant steel buoy. The lake floor was layered with film of oil slick seeping up from the ground, and unfortunately James biffed it in the foul smelling gunk. Thankfully, he had a change of clothes. We went down the road a bit more to go dispose of high velocity lead projectiles. There were a few rusty industrial drums in the distance that provided entertaining targets that reported with a satisfying "twang!" Mostly shot .22, but I also had a box of ammo for my new .45 1911 which nearly deafened anyone w/o earplugs.





With the sun down, we piled into the cars again, and blazed on through the desert, now dodging sneaky cattle, and retarded jackrabbits. It took about 40 minutes to get to our final destination of Crystal Hotsprings. Everyone was in need of a good soaking, and despite the large amount of cars, the crowds weren't too bad. To finish the night off, I reserved a campsite (which was taken by underage drunkards) so we moved to another to have an irresponsibly large bonfire. We snacked, and had a blast goofing off, and telling stories. When our wood supply dwindled, we packed up, and left. Of course, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to confound and perhaps frighten the hosers who yanked our reserved campsite on our way out. A drive-by shrieking was in order… ah.. good times. Got back sometime in the early am, plus w/ daylight savings and all.. we lost another hour….