G&C Summer 2017
Blogpost 012
July 3rd – July 7th
If there’s one thing any traveler
of the great American mid-western ramparts can and will take away from their
journey regardless of extent, weather, or company is that there’s a whole lot
of nuthin’ to be found in it. I’m writing this journal entry on the 7th of July
at the Red Desert Rose Campground in Rawlins middle of nowheresville Wyoming,
several days after our bout atop the colossal majesty of the mountains of
Glacier if for no other reason other than; there simply isn’t too much to
discuss or reflect on. Since Montana we’ve been through three more states and
added another thousand miles to our journey and yet my mid-trip conclusion
remains as such; that for every awe-inspiring plot of beautiful land there’s
about fifty aches worth of barren waste to balance it out. Let it be known that
this is not a flat-out insult to the natural earthen void that is Idaho-Utah
farm country but rather an appreciation of its vast blandness for without it
who knows how much more we humans would for granted the prettier parts of our
home planet (especially the luscious eastern-American coastline that I have and
forever will call “home).
Our
destination post-Glacier, was Moscow Idaho, home of the U-Idaho Vandals and Washington State University aka
the Butch-T Cougars; an oasis of civilization in an otherwise
plain sea of potato-centric agricultural. The purpose for our visitation was
for the universities’ entomology collections where Charlotte had reached out
ahead of time a request to examine and database their asilid specimens. This
was to be the first of many insect museum stops for the summer as well as the
primary reason for us taking to the mass network of yellow-dashed asphalt that
is the American highway system. While I, not being a scientist in the slightest
despite earning my undergraduate degree in psychological studies but
considering my background in the “soft-sciences” I was considered to be as
useful as a pair of 3D glasses to Polyphemus the cyclops. Because of this fact
I spent my day in the Idaho Inn catching up on some much needed alone time
which involved writing, video editing, and catching up with family via phone
where I learned from my mother that I’d already visited Moscow ID once before
in utero as well as Glacier National Park some twenty-four and a-half years
prior. I was also tasked with the completion of my fiancé’s and I’s collective
laundry at the local laundromat across the street; and I must say the nervous
glances I received in that place at the sight of me public reading my hardcover
copy of the Complete Cthulhu Mythos. I suspect they thought me of a
daemonic cultist or worse, a DEMOCRAT!!! As I carried out my daily
chores Chot performed her scientific duties with great enthusiasm and found herself
in high esteem by the museum curator who ferried her to WSU in order to grace
their collection with her work. She was also rewarded with a quick visit to a
grizzly bear sanctuary as was kind enough to take pictures for me though I was
not at all envious for I was having a lovely day to myself in the hotel.
A not so great picture of some grizzlies
The
next day we left the state of Idaho for another familiar location that my
fiancé and I were no stranger too, Salt Lake City. Where the followers of
Joseph Mormon came to the Oquirrh Mountains and collectively said, “screw that”
and settled in the shaded foothills. We’d spent a day and a night in the city
last summer coming from the R lazy S ranch en-rout to California and having
never been to the supposed “capitol of the mid-west” we deicide the split the
trip in half and see the Mormon-Mecca for ourselves. Our experience was a
strange one, eerily reminiscent of an early Twilight Zone episode as it
was Sunday on our arrival and the city was almost completely empty of
residents. Both Chot and myself were equal parts fascinated and perturbed
feeling much like the block from the bringing of 28 Days Later, I’m
sure. And although we were aware that this being a city chock-full of devote
later-day saints keeping true to the sabbath it’s still downright freaky to
walk about in a empty city. Well, not entirely empty, there were plenty hoards
of homeless around every corner to really drive the post-apocalypse vibe home.
That, or the rapture had happened and we were just none the wiser. Fortunately
for us gentiles (which is weird to write as a half-Jew) judgment day was not
the case as it had been a year later and the same city was sprawling with its
regular array of devote citizens in addition to the homeless ones. Then again
we were visiting in the middle of the week this time.
But
before we entered the city we’d decided to take a slight detour and visit the Great
Salt Lake in person, a mistake we realized we made last summer. To experience
the great primordial lake and all it’s glory you’ll have to set your sights for
the state park, Antelope Island; the largest landmass open to the public which
is in truth more of a man-made peninsula. It costs five dollars a head to enter
but once you’re past the gates you’re given free range of the park, provided
that you keep to the roads and trails and do not engage the wild bison that
inhabit the island. My fiancé and I were surprised at just how alien the
landscape could be; surprisingly hilly with scattered tan upheavals of bare
rock between huge tracks of pale-yellow grass. Hardly anything grows on
Antelope Island but what can one expect when a mostly dead body of water
surrounds it. The Great Salt lake itself is a miracle of nature that deserves
recognition of its own right; 1,700 square miles long but with a max depth of
just thirty-seven feet deep America’s Dead Sea is all that’s left remnant of
the prehistoric Bonneville Lake whose shallowness and extreme mineral quantity
is the result of there being no escape for the water (except evaporation) that
comes off of the mountains. Essentially the water in the lake has been the same
for thousands of years making it impossible for any life forms to thrive in
it’s salty basin save for brine-prawns and Sea Monkeys. In fact, the Great Salt
Lake is known as the “Sea Monkey Capital of the World,” and is responsible for
90% of the global fish food industry. It’s also incredibly ripe with insect
life; grasshoppers, brine-flies, and other pesky critters flourish in the
island’s grasslands having no real predatory threats except for the adorably obese
jumping spiders who just sit atop grass stalks and wait for prey to literally
jump into their mouths. Charlotte was fortunate enough to spot and capture a
sole asilid after over an hour of hunting. We would have stayed longer but the
heat and onslaught of curious brine-flies to our limbs and faces was enough to
cut our Island-adventure short and besides, we had business in the city.
Antelope Island
Hot and Tired, but also super happy :)
Our
purpose here was the same as in Moscow; Charlotte had arranged a day in the
Natural History Museum of Utah, to look at asilids while I labored away on Photoshop
for this video commercial with seemingly no end in sight. Fortunately the
museum’s sole insect-curator was so grateful to find someone to curate and
database her asilid collection, that she rewarded my fiancé with two free day-passes
to the museum. We spent the greater part of the afternoon at their exquisite Viking
exhibit which was appropriate considering the fact that we’ve been planning for
a “slight” Viking theme for our wedding; and considering Charlotte’s heritage
is Scandinavian it’s more justifiable then most theme-weddings we’ve seen
plastered on the internet and social media.
With
out business in Salt Lake completed we set off on our next destination: I-don’t-know-where
in someplace-Wyoming at a little camping complex called Red Desert Rose. This
is more of a halfway point to Denver Colorado but two four-hour drives is far
superior to one that’s eight-hours in total. Unfortunately there wasn’t much to
discuss for this day. The scenery is bland and uninspiring and so far the
biggest highlight on my end has been the start of a new book, Fyodor
Dostoyevsky’s 19th century classic, The House of the Dead; the
semi-autobiographical account of the author’s time and observations of life
inside a Siberian prison camp. It’s dreary and dismal but fascinating and
gracefully scribed. As I read my fiancé frolicked among the campgrounds and
caught ten asilids before harvesting them of their venom glands in the
makeshift laboratory she set up in our tent. We’re a morbid bunch, aren’t
we?
Charlotte's dissection station
George's writing station
Fun with some sculptures at the campground!
