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Great Basin National Park to Salt Lake City

 

Last night I was hoping that I would wake to the sounds of birds chirping. As I lay in that half-awake state this morning, I did indeed hear a lone bird singing her heart out . . . to the melodious drumming of the rain.

Wheeler Peak was beautiful, all shrouded in clouds:

After breakfast, Genevieve and Sebastian grabbed an umbrella and headed outdoors on a trash-collecting mission. This task was part of many requirements they had to fulfill in order to receive a Jr. Ranger badge from Great Basin. They started collecting Jr. Ranger badges last summer. Many national parks and monuments offer Jr. Ranger programs in which children complete various activities in a booklet, attend at least one ranger-led activity, and perform a service such as trash collecting. They are then rewarded with a special pin/badge and get sworn in as a junior ranger. Each park designs its own program; some programs are better than others, but Genevieve and Sebastian have always enjoyed earning each of their badges.

Some of the exercises in the Great Basin Jr. Ranger program were quite challenging (even with Ben and I helping!). We packed up and drove a few miles back to the town of Baker, which had the main visitor’s center for Great Basin National Park. The children needed to look at the exhibits there on animal life in order to answer some of the questions in their Jr. Ranger booklets.

We didn’t venture too far into the town of Baker, but these older homes were on the outskirts.

The road back to the Park from Baker:

Earlier this morning, while driving to the visitor’s center, we noticed some roadside artwork that we had not seen yesterday. How could we have missed these beauties?!

First came a person lifting a ton (2000 lbs.):

Next came “Bob Wire”:

And his wife “Barb Wire”:

And the unfortunate “Too Tall Tony”, whose legs just wouldn’t fit into the grave:

And then there was this friendly chap waving:

Yesterday we had purchased tickets to attend a one-hour, ranger-led tour of the Lehman Caves at Great Basin this morning. Our guide was Ranger Sue:

The tour was excellent—far surpassing my expectations. No one else had signed up, so we felt like we were on a “private” tour. We saw thousands of exquisite stalactites and stalagmites of all shapes and sizes.

“Stalactites” are the shapes that grow from the top of the cavern:

They are formed when water seeps into the cave and mixes with the calcite along the walls and ceiling and then drips down.

“Stalagmites” are the shapes that grow from the bottom of the cave, and are formed when drips of water (mixed with calcite) fall off of the stalactite onto the cave floor. The drips build up over time to form tall mounds.

When the stalactite (on the top) meets the stalagmite (on the bottom), a “column” is formed:

(One tip for remembering the difference between the two is that stalactite has a “t” for “top” of the cave.)

We also we saw and learned about many other types of cave decorations (also called “speleothems”).

“Cave drapery”:

“Cave popcorn”:

Here is a “helectite”:

Ranger Sue, Genevieve and Sebastian are shining their flashlights to illuminate a piece of “cave bacon”:

And here is a “cave shield”:

This shield is called the “Parachute” (it also looks like a jellyfish):

We all were fascinated by the different organic shapes, which stimulated our imaginations. The children were very engaged and enthused throughout the entire session. Ranger Sue was extremely knowledgeable, and she welcomed the children’s many questions.

What is everyone looking at?

Answer—This amazing shield:

A large opening in the cave wall was called the “Giant’s Ear.”

We wandered through many caverns and passageways. Some of the caverns were quite large, and people would have big parties down here during the late 1800’s:

One large cavern is called the “Inscription Room.” The party guests would use the flames from their candles to write their names and other graffiti on the cavern ceiling:

This formation is called the “Angel’s Wing”:

And here is our own “angel”, Genevieve:

A few more photos of the caves:

Afterwards, the children finished answering some questions in their Jr. Ranger booklets. Another ranger went through the booklets in detail, making sure that the children understood the materials. Then Genevieve and Sebastian were both sworn in as Jr. Rangers and received their badges, as well as certificates.

The children were happy:

The skies were turning blue, and Wheeler Peak was basking in the sunshine:

After lunch in the RV, the children enjoyed a bit of cold refreshment from the Park café:

We then headed to Utah; our destination today was Salt Lake City. We had originally planned to spend one more night in Great Basin, but we hoped to find a generator repair shop in Salt Lake City. We intended to call information and track down a repair center as soon as we reached a point with cell phone service.

We took photos of more roadside artwork on the road out of the Park.

We think this was a spider:

A snake:

The artist was very creative with this alien miner in a wheelchair:

One that I saw but didn’t photograph was a metal bowl with the words “Great Basin”. There was a ranger driving behind our RV, and there was no place to pull over, so we couldn’t stop.

The road ahead:

Welcome to Utah!

As soon as we crossed the state line from Nevada into Utah, Ben noticed that the roads went from smooth to excessively bumpy.

Ben thought that the large shadow on this mountain looked like a swimming mermaid:

The mountains here had multiple layers.

Some of them looked like Nature had terraced them, ready for crops to be planted.

This hill had a swirling pattern on the rocky surface:

And this mountain had beautiful stripes:

We passed to the side of a huge salt plain.

The desert appeared very dry, with sagebrush that was much smaller than in Nevada—if fact, this desert made Nevada look lush.

The vegetation went from small short patches of grass to long spiky shrubs:

The sky was brilliant:

At the first small town, we pulled over to see if we had cell phone reception. Yes! We called the generator repair center in Salt Lake City, but they did not have any available appointments for at least two weeks, when we would be several states away. We called another place, which also did not have any appointments until next week. We didn’t want to miss out on the fun things that we had planned for next week in Moab and Colorado, so we decided to just make do without a generator for a couple of weeks until we reached San Antonio, Texas.

While we were arranging an appointment, this horse sauntered across the field to greet us. She was very friendly and gave us a few whinnies of hello. I thought about feeding her an apple, but she already looked quite round and well-fed.

The desert field turned to miles of dry grassland:

North of the small town of Delta, the grass turned green.

In Tintic, we stopped to admire the gigantic headframe that was fabricated in 1890 for the Bullion Beck & Champion Mining Company.

Here is a drawing of how the headframe was placed above the underground mine.

The headframe was listed on the National Register of Historic places in 1979. Genevieve and I got a close-up view:

The downtown Tintic area looked like it had thrived in the distant past; however, it seemed to have a modern ghost town feeling.

We arrived after the Tintic Mining museum had closed for the day:

There were two pretty churches on the main street.

As we were leaving Tintic, I waved to a group of people standing outside of a house, and they waved and smiled back.

Near the edge of town, the clouds were embracing this mountaintop:

The side of this hill was being removed by either mining or quarry activities:

We wound our way through the surrounding hills, and entered a large valley. The dark Wasatch Mountains loomed in the distance.

As we rolled to a stop in the small town of Elberta, Ben said, “There’s a boy and his dog. No, it’s a boy and his pig!” A boy was walking along the side of the road, and his little pig was following like a devoted shadow. We stopped, and I asked the boy if I could take his picture:

We drove north on the west side of Utah Lake. We had the option to travel on the east side on a big freeway, but we like to drive on 2-lane country roads whenever possible.

These sheep were grazing near the road:

The snow-topped mountains across the lake were really beautiful, especially with the low clouds.

I looked across the lake and could see a solid line of homes and other buildings. I remarked to Ben that it was surprising that this side of the lake was so quiet and undeveloped; then we rounded a curve and found the beginning of one new housing project after another, all of the way up to the city limits of Salt Lake City.

The surrounding dark mountains were beautiful:

Our first look at downtown Salt Lake City:

We stayed in the Salt Lake City KOA campground tonight.

The rain descended as soon as we had settled in for the evening. Ben barbecued outside under an umbrella, and was rewarded with a view of this colorful rainbow spreading across the sky.

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