The West (Day 5)- Antelope Island, UT to Idaho Falls, ID

The first thing I saw when I came out of the trailer this morning was this coyote.  

It is A1's first! She was woofing.

I don't know what the coyote was doing, but whatever it was, the birds didn't like it.  They were dive bombing him.

Yesterday I was talking to a fellow camper (at a distance) and he asked me if we were "going to do a float".  I said, "is that a thing?".  He said yes.  

Fast forward to today, we are walking from our campsite to the lake, so we can float in water with salinity that ranges from 5-27% (the ocean is about 3.5%).

This is exactly how I feel.

We were warned about the flies.  This is actually better than I thought it would be!  Ha.  I thought they would be biting.  These flies are not interested in us at all.  The brine fly cloud moves away as you get closer.  And they are only on the shoreline, not on the water.

Here is a simple breakdown of the Salt Lake food web.  

There are no fish in this lake.

The Great Salt Lake is the largest salt water lake in the western hemisphere.  30,000 years ago Utah was almost completely covered with water.  11,000 years ago, the megalake (Lake Bonneville) was a freshwater lake with outlets to the ocean.  But the outlets became cut off and it has evaporated ever since, so the salt in the water has become concentrated.  Now it is a terminal lake, so the salt from sand that is brought in by rivers is deposited into the lake and stays there.  

A1 is unknowingly agitating the brine shrimp.

The moment of truth!

Yep.  I am floating!

And now I am floating with a baby on me, with no effort at all.

It is so satisfying to float in the Great Salt Lake.  

Jump on, Eric!

Buoyancy at its finest.

We cannot wait to come back. 

We had our road shower filled so we were able to get the crusted salt off of us, for the most part, before our drive to Idaho.  (If we didn't have our shower there are paid showers at the beach nearby.)  

Our drive today was short, less than 200 miles.

We weren't at Raya's for five minutes before A1 was back in water, in Raya's homemade water table (with a safety lid).

Now it is time to play, Who Wore it Best?

After dinner we walked through Tautphaus Park and Rose Hill Cemetery, which abuts their neighborhood.