Wanderings Home

As we were approaching Brigham City on our way home from Idaho and the solar eclipse, Kent said, "Do you want to go to the Spiral Jetty?"  I was so pleased that he made the suggestion and said yes.  I have wanted to take the kids to the Spiral Jetty for a couple of summers now, but it's such a long way, about 2.5 hours, that I haven't managed to work up enough enthusiasm to load them up and go.  Plus it's so hot, I remember that there is no shade, and while I wanted to take them, the day that seemed like the time hadn't arrived.  So being in that neck of the woods and having Kent make the suggestion all seemed like a great idea.

Near the Spiral Jetty is the Golden Spike National Historic Site, where the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad met as they worked to join the eastern and western United States.  Two stops and interesting sites in one detour!  The Golden Spike Monument has a small visitors center and shows a short video about the building of the railroad, as well as the railroad tie where the golden spike was driven.  They have a replica of the spike (the actual spike is at Stanford University), and replicas of the two trains that chugged into place as the rails came together.  Usually they have regular reenactments of the driving, but there is broken track that will likely be repaired next month, so you can only see them in the train house.  We got to climb into one, however, and ring the bell on the front.

Brandt and Blythe standing at the very site of the union.  

There are no spikes in the tie because of the reenactments,

but that's the spot.

We left the trains to journey to the Spiral Jetty.  The jetty is an earthwork sculpture on the north shore of the Great Salt Lake, truly in the middle of nowhere.  It's almost sixteen miles from the Golden Spike Monument, along a gravel road.  It is the work of Robert Smithson, an artist, and was constructed in 1970 out of mud and basalt rocks.  It forms a 1,500-foot-long, 15-foot-wide counterclockwise coil that juts into the water from the shore of the lake.  It is sometimes visible and sometimes submerged, depending on the water level of the lake.  At the moment it is nowhere near submerged.  The nearest water is probably half a mile away.  Kent and I had been to see it years ago, before children, and when we went, there was water around it, a sort of pinkish hued water, with salt covering all the rocks making them white.  Now the dark rock is exposed, there is little salt on it, and the landscape around it very barren.  We saw the remnants of a dead seagull and little else.  I didn't realize it, but this year the Spiral Jetty was named Utah's official state work of art.

The children were not thrilled about continuing on to the jetty, but we had come all that way, and I told them, since we had come and they were old enough to remember it, we wouldn't have to go see it ever again.  We walked the length of the jetty, stared in wonder over the vastness of the lake and landscape, then walked back to the car.  It might have been somewhat underwhelming for several in our party.  

 

The landscape we drove through to get to the Spiral Jetty.

Someone is not thrilled about this stop.

The Spiral Jetty from the parking lot.

Looking out into the lake.

Water is far away.

It's our very own Moon landscape.

An intrepid plant growing in the middle of the jetty path in the salty sand.

Fulfilling the measure of its creation.

We drove back to Brigham City, being able to recommence our book on CD listening.  We finished Prince Caspian as we were getting on the freeway in Idaho Falls and had been listening to the first book The Bad Beginning of A Series of Unfortunate Events.  It was too bumpy to listen on the gravel road; the CD kept skipping.  The children didn't mind as they were able to play on their Kindles.  We had some dinner in Brigham City, then continued home.  I was delighted with our detour and felt like the whole experience--road trip to Idaho, visiting with Cory and Erika, seeing the eclipse, then the Golden Spike Monument and the Spiral Jetty--was a wonderful way to end the summer.  Although school did start last week, I told Kent it felt like a true summer day, where we did what we wanted with little care for schedule.  Hooray for getting off the beaten track!