Flying Through the Great Salt Lake

Before telling you more about our super boring and lame road trip, let us ask you a question. How many blondes does it take to write a blog? We’ll give you a clue, it’s not one. Just because it is posted under someone’s name, does not mean they were the one that wrote it. Also, aside from what Jack may think, we are not alcoholics, we just really enjoy our 5 o’clock happy hour…it’s 5 o’clock somewhere right? Ok, now that that’s off our chests, where were we? Oh right, leaving Yellowstone and moving on to Salt Lake City. Before leaving Yellowstone, we desperately needed to do laundry. Actually, we were in dire need of some clean clothes because I think we were beginning to scare people away with our scent. On the bright side, it kept the wildlife away from us at night….or so we think. Minus the wolves Britt heard howling in the middle of the night, but whatever, they didn’t come get us.

Our drive to Salt Lake City was painstakingly boring. There was no wildlife to feed, nowhere to stop for gas, no crop circles to look at, we didn’t even get lost. There’s pretty much nothing else to tell you, unless you would care to know we stopped at Subway for lunch. The highlight of our day was by far taking gloriously long, hot showers and feeling human again. We no longer could be mistaken for being French, because, wait for it……we got to shave! No caveman legs, no manly armpits, no more questions as to being tan or dirty. We even wore our hair down and put some makeup on, something that seemed foreign to us at this point. After googling restaurants in the area, we came upon one called Squatter’s Pub Brewery, very fitting for our trip. The food and drinks were delicious. For those of you who are considering visiting Salt Lake City, it is highly recommended. Please refer to Britt and Lindsay for any questions about the beer. 

After dinner we grabbed a few drinks at a local bar and called it a night.

Being in Salt Lake City, we obviously had to visit the Great Salt Lake. Let’s begin with saying it was NOT what we were expecting. Driving in to the park area, we saw a total of 2 cars. Not a good sign. Once reaching the beach area, expecting more people, we were disappointed to find a whopping 6 people on the beach, none of whom were laying out enjoying the hot sun. At this point we opted to scope out the lake before making camp on the beach. Good thing we did, because we lasted a total of 23 minutes. We cannot even begin to describe how many flies were on the beach. 

The scattered black dots are live flies, while the large clumps of black are a combination of dead and living flies. Nauseating, right? It felt as though we were being violently molested by these vulgar creatures. You know how in the fall when a big gust of wind blows a pile of leaves? Imagine that times a million, but it’s flies instead of leaves. Absolutely disgusting; to the point where we wanted to leave, but we had our hearts set on at least putting our feet in the water. After gaining enough courage to walk through the filthy flies, we managed to get our feet in the water and say we’ve been in the Great Salt Lake. Within seconds of putting our feet in the water, we wanted to get the h*ll out of there as fast as we possibly could. Since our hopes and dreams were crushed of laying out at the Great Salt Lake, we opted to hang out by the pool at our hotel and melt in the 100° heat. Whatever, as long as we were getting tan, it was fine with us. While getting into the car to go to dinner, we noticed an interesting smell, but couldn’t quite figure it out. As we began to drive, the smell became considerably stronger and we recognized the fabulous smell of wine. Well, this was not so fabulous in the car because the cork had exploded out of the bottle due to the extreme heat. Who knew this was even possible? Actually, after thinking about it, it made complete sense. Thankfully, we had considered this with the propane. Had we not, we may have been renting a car the rest of the way. Dinner was good. Drinks were good. Bed was good. Life is good.

In the morning, Sam and Britt headed for a quick workout at the hotel. While there, they encountered their first Olympic athlete, a marathon runner no less. He may have been in his mid 60’s, but who cares, it was awesome to hear his stories. People here are so much friendlier and willing to share stories than in the Northeast. Such a nice change. Since we were sick of packing the car, we decided to just leave it all at the hotel. You can always buy new clothes and toiletries. This saved us about 20 minutes and we got an early start on the road. Even though our trek to Napa was close to 11 hours, it was filled with absolutely nothing. Once again, the roads were boring, however, the speed limit was 75mph so that’s always a plus. Actually, we lied. We did see some aliens while driving through Nevada.

We swear on our lives this picture was not doctored. Immediately we sent the picture to CNN after hearing about the CIA agent who confirmed that the aircraft found in 1947 was in fact an alien aircraft (we’re serious here, go look it up). After arriving at the hotel, we did the usual….unpack the car, find food, then alcohol. What a tough life we live. However, you all should be honored that we are spending our first night in Napa blogging, just so you can vicariously live through us. Let’s be serious, we’re actually just resting up for our full day of wine tasting tomorrow. As you may have noticed, we’ve been in training for quite some time. This will make for a very interesting next blog.  

Until Next Time,

Zai Jian