Joseph's Myth

For those of you who know how I road trip, you will know that having only covered 708km in one day is odd for me. This trip has truly been more of a sighting seeing trip than my usual one destination how long can I drive in one day type road trip that I have been doing since 2001.

Here is a better photo of our camera setup in the car.

So we crossed into Idaho early this morning. I had told Aaron of the Idaho plastic potato pins they give out at the Visitors Centre when you cross into Idaho. Aaron's excitement was soon dashed by no sign of pins in the centre. Perhaps over the last 8 years (the last time I stopped at this place with Brandy and Chelsia) they phased out the pins.

Idaho was mainly covered in smoke. It seems like they were having problems with forest fires too. Everything is super dry out here at the moment. 

A sad sign of the times. Don't forget your cell phone when you travel I guess.

The Utah border came quickly, and soon we were off the Interstate headed for the Spiral Jetty. The Jetty is inside Golden Spike National Park, although it is not an official part of the park. The road through the park is not paved and the last 10 miles to the jetty is a small gravel road, despite road condition we could still do about 90km/hr. I was surprised to see two people pass us coming back from the Jetty, I thought we' be the only ones.

I wasn't sure to what to expect with Aaron's crazy idea of visiting this land art, but I was surprised at how neat it was.

Aaron wanted to get naked and go into the lake, but after closer inspection he decided against it.

Our time at the Jetty was fun, and it seem that other people do come out here. There was fire pit in the middle of parking lot (which was just the dead end of the road). We're not sure if burning your underwear is part of some tradition when one visits the Jetty.

After the Jetty we headed to Salt Lake City to see the Mormon temple. Aaron took some time taking photos of various statues on the temple grounds, and soon we became to weirded out by the vibe of the place and went looking for beer and food. On the way to Red Rock Brewing we saw a car with a white bumper stick with simple black letters saying "Joseph's Myth", a great play on the name of founder of the Mormon religion, Joseph Smith. While Aaron took a photo of the sticker the owner of the truck saw us and asked if we wanted the same sticker, we of course wanted them and he happily supplied us our own Joseph's Myth stickers. He told us if we put them on our car to expect them to be scratched off.

It was a short trip to Provo, where we are now settled for the night. Provo and I have a history. I was trapped here in 2004 after a fuel pump relay went on my Volvo on US 6 south of Provo headed to Moab. I could have fixed it right there on the road (I had spare relays as any good Volvo owner should have in their glove box), but it didn't occur to me at the time and was towed back to Provo.  

The last time I slept here we (Brandy, Chelsia, and I) were told Provo was the Meth Capital of America. It doesn't seem so bad this time around, though I didn't make a bee line for the place we stayed at back 8 years ago. 

I almost can't sleep knowing the Moab is so close. I look forward to sharing some photos of my favourite place in North America tomorrow.