Tuesday, October 12, 2004

"Oh Give Me a Home..."

When I lived in southern California, at any given moment I could jump in a car and get to the beach in about 40 minutes. Here in Utah, if you want sand and salt water there are two options: 1) drive 10 hours to California, or 2) drive ten minutes to the Great Salt Lake. It’s a hard choice, because if you want to compare the two locations, just replace “California beach” with “chocolate cake” and “Great Salt Lake” with “dog vomit.” One is fantastic, but it takes a lot of work to get there. The other is pretty much worthless, but at least it’s closer, right?

But really, the Great Salt Lake does have its charms. For one thing, you can float in it. The salt is so concentrated it makes you very buoyant, as if little hands are lifting you up from underneath. The only other body of water with this much salt is the Dead Sea and that’s even farther away than California, or so I've been told. This is good news if you enjoy floating, and bad news if you enjoy drowning.

Floating is where the fun ends, however. The only other thing the lake has is brine shrimp, flies, stink, and ratbirds (seagulls). The sand is so covered with flies, they make a thick black carpet all along the shore. There is one exception. Seven miles into the lake is a place called Antelope Island which, at certain times of the year, is completely bug free. It’s home to 700 buffalo and various other animals, like (you guessed it) antelope. I’ve always had it in my head that I was going to visit this island but never actually did it.

Well I had Monday off work. Don’t ask me why they think Columbus Day is worthy of celebration. What did Columbus ever do for anyone? I'm not complaining, mind you. Crazy Spaniard or no crazy Spaniard, it's a day off! None of my friends had it off, so hanging out was out of the question. I was left with three options: 1) stay home, 2) pick my nose, or 3) go to Antelope Island.

Home was boring, nose was empty, number 3 it was. I put on my hiking boots, jumped in Abob (my car), and headed off. It was a sunny day and the Salt Lake shimmered as I drove along the causeway listening to Paul Van Dyk. There’s something about good weather, blue water and Trance that is very soothing. Not at all like bad weather, brown water and light jazz. That just sucks.

Once on the island, I pulled into the Visitor’s Center and looked around. There was this creepy old man who kept staring at me. I avoided his eyes, bought a postcard and walked out to take some pictures. When I came back in, he was still staring at me, standing hunched over, with no expression on his pruney face. As I walked past him, I smiled friendly-like. His face never changed. Stupid old man.

I decided to look for buffalo. They’re not hard to find. Really, they’re no-good, lazy creatures. It’s no surprise they were almost wiped out a century or so ago. Like cattle, they enjoy sitting around on their huge, hairy gluts. Most just lay there and stared at me, kind of like that old man. They must be distant cousins.

The only thing better than staring at bison is eating bison. That’s what I did next. A nice Hispanic woman cooked me up a buffalo burger at a small cafĂ© on a hill. It was good, tasting mostly like cow. All the “exotic” meat I’ve ever had seems to taste like cow. Warthog, bison, emu and ostrich all taste like cow. All the other birds taste pretty much like chicken. Oh, except dove. Dove is the most succulent meat there is. I suspect Noah promptly ate his dove when it came back with that olive branch. That’s what I would have done.

This long-winded travelogue doesn’t have an eventful ending. I drove around some more, went in the water, did some hiking and went home. Nothing life changing, but a good day nonetheless. I decided that I like this little island in the middle of the fly-ridden cesspool they call the Great Salt Lake. Just goes to show that every bad thing always has some good in it. The Salt Lake has Antelope Island. Country music has a few hot vocalists. Hitler has that funny accent. And Celine Dion can’t live forever. Yup, some good in everything.



13 comments:

grace said...

yay! new post :D it was everything i had hoped it would be and more...

PvD :D i lurve him. he was supposed to be at voodoo fest this weekend, but he had oral surgery or something. friggin' liar. he just hates me.

i must concur... driving with good weather, blue water, trance... almost nothing can beat it. ahhhh.

do you like tiesto? i heart him even more than PvD...

at any rate, sorry for the babble. just glad to have a new post. :)

Jer said...

Don't know much of Tiesto--I'll have to check it out.

Yes, PvD is loverly. Have you seen his music videos? They are funny, but in a not-supposed-to-be-funny kind of way. They're mostly close-ups of him staring cooly at the camera. I think the man knows he has piercing eyes and likes to flaunt them.

hillary said...

hitler also had the mustache. and who said celine dion can't live forever? and even if she does eventually die, we all know that her heart will go on...

C.K. said...

Just remember this: you can pick your nose, you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your friends' nose(s)

and I like country music...

Jer said...

Here's what happened to the old man:

After I left, he had nobody to stare at, so he stared at the wall. Then he went home and stared at his ham sandwich. Then he choked on it. Now he's staring at the lid of his coffin. One day he will stare at worms as they eat their way through the wood above his head. Then he will stare at the mud seeping in. Perhaps in a thousand years he will stare behind a glass cage as people stare back in some space-age museum. Perhaps they will take his DNA, clone him, and give him new life. Then, I expect, he will find me, wherever I am, and keep on staring, staring forever.

grace said...

oh, but you MUST check out tiesto.

and yeah... those PvD vids are so awesome... i always crack up when i see them. he's just happy he's not one of the ugly DJs... because there are a lot of them.

hillary said...

that poor old man! well, i can't say he didn't deserve it. he was, after all, eating a ham sandwich, when we all know turkey is a much better lunch meat than ham...

Anonymous said...

If you ever decide to make the trek again you should check out the spiral jetty on the northern side of the GSL. It's a super swirly natural slash man-made land mass that calls back to early 70's space age movies. Woah.

C.K. said...

Yes, but it should be bologna, that way we could all break out in song:
"My bologna has a first name, it's O-S-C-A-R..."

NARDAC said...

Hey! Hitler had that funny accent when he got overdubbed.
The good thing about Hitler IS HIS MOUSTACHE.
I liked moustaches.
You can't be a good dictator without facial hair.
And that's one damn genius moustache he had.
The moustache of madness.

Jer said...

I would have to agree. The moustache was his greatest attribute, although the accent, dubbed or not, still makes me giggle.

Anonymous said...

Jeremy, your blog makes me giggle!
-Kristen

Jer said...

Why thank you dear.