The summer of Emily!

Except that it is the Summer of Emily.

Or, even more accurately, The Summer of Adventure!

I wanted it to be the Summer of Sewing, but I do not yet have a sewing machine.  So I decided to start my Summer of Adventure by making a trip I've been thinking about for a long time.

This is Spiral Jetty.  It's a giant piece of installation artwork on the northern end of The Great Salt Lake

Here's a map, to give you an idea what I mean:

It's not quite 3 hours from Provo.  While I was not aware exactly where the thing was located, I have wanted to see it for a really long time.  So I decided last week that I was going to go.  Even after I found out how far away it is.  Callie was unsure at first, (she said the thought of driving for three hours to a place that was not her home seemed ridiculous) but she eventually decided to come along.

So, as it turns out, there are actually two jetties out there on the northern end of The Great Salt Lake.  There is the Spiral Jetty, and then there is another, longer, straighter, more nameless jetty just a little before it.  Amusingly enough, I only just learned this a few minutes ago, along with the sad realization that...we never actually made it to Spiral Jetty.

How did I not notice, you may well be wondering, that this jetty did no spiraling whatsoever?  That this jetty was in one tenaciously straight line?  Because it was half underwater is how.  Go look at that picture again, and you'll see that there is a long stretch from shore that is perfectly straight, yes?  Well, I didn't know how big the thing was, so when I saw that the end of the jetty was underwater I just assumed that it was really really big, and underwater and all we could see was the straight bit, with a little bit of a bend at the end.  And I'm not too bright.  So sue me.  The salt flats weren't what I was expecting either when I went to see them last summer because they, too, were underwater so I just figured I had really bad luck...

That being said, the jetty we did see was pretty freakin' amazing!

It was gorgeous and sunny with a fair wind.  My hair spent the entire time rebelling and blowing in my face.  Which was pretty cool I guess...

Callie always looks so adorable...darn her...

Fun fact: seagulls and herons in flight make the most fantastic
squdgy sound as they flap...

this is my favorite picture

In addition to my wish to see Spiral Jetty, I also came up with this strange goal: I wanted to walk out to to the end and I wanted to have my own crazy ipod dance party.  Which I totally did.

I had to pick my way across the "washed out" bit of the jetty
and try to keep my shoes dry.  Totally nailed it.

Callie didn't want to get her shoes wet, so she did not come with me to the very end.  So all by myself I took out my ipod, turned on some Rihanna "We Found Love in a Hopeless Place", and started dancing.  Well, technically it took me about a song to get into it.  But I danced for about three songs out there, waving my arms like a crazy person and trying really hard not to twist my ankles on loose rocks.  It was...pretty fantastic.


Though Spiral Jetty was the primary goal of our trip, we made an unexpected detour on the way there.  The road out led us right past the Golden Spike National Historic Site.  We were planning just driving past, but as we approached it we saw two big, beautiful, steam engines gleaming in the sunlight.  We couldn't resist.  We got there just in time for the end of...the reenactment!  Yeah!  Apparently, for maybe two or three weeks, around the anniversary of the driving of the final nail, they do daily reenactments of the historic moment, and bring out those two fantastic steam engines.  We got to watch them pound the spikes in and Callie got a picture holding one of them.

Then we got to wander around the trains taking pictures of them.  I thought the man on this one looked pretty legitimate.

Then, on the way home, after The Jetty That is Not a Spiral, we realized that the place where we got off the freeway (exit 365, in case you were wondering) was not actually a place where you can also get back on the freeway (who does that?) so we ended up taking an involuntary, but very charming drive through downtown Brigham City.  I wanted to buy some lovely blue flats I'd seen at H&M in London (vainly hoped they would also exist here...not so much) so we stopped there and Callie bought some new butter yellow keds to replace the shoes she had managed to cover with tar on our trip.

Our last stop before finally getting back to Provo was the Asian market, where I bought two bags of the milk-flavored chews I love so much, two boxes of mochi ice cream, and a bag of these really fantastic marshmallows filled with orange jelly.  Oh, and a weird pseudo ice cream cone for Calie

looked like a milkshake that melted and then re-congealed...mmm!

And then it was back to Provo to watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with John, Bryan, Summer, and Kat.  I love that movie and I always will.  It is just so fantastic.  It was made even more fantastic when I came home and saw the "super moon" floating over my complex.  Quite beautiful!

So, I guess I'll have to make another trip out to Spiral Jetty one of these days since I still technically haven't seen it.  I'll admit, I'm a little bummed out that we didn't ever actually make it, but really, it's pretty funny.  And luckily, next week's adventure is Hoggle Zoo in Salt Lake.  I don't think there will be any sort of secret "second" zoo to get me confused so I'll have to end up in the right place at the right time.  I'll keep you posted...