The Bonneville Salt Flats - are flat.

A friend of mine from Seattle flew down to see Salt Lake City with me, and I convinced her to drive to the Bonnevile Salt Flats, near the border of Nevada. We drove for what seemed like forever, through beautiful scenery.

While in Salt Lake City, you can see the most amazing mountains right out of your window, as we got closer to Nevada the land was extremely flat.

And then out of no where, the ground was white. I'm not sure we even noticed where it changed over. And then there was this sign:This is the site of testing of high speed race cars. It is an extremely large flat salt pan, which forms where water pools. The water that doesn't sink into the ground remains on the surface until it evaporates, leaving behind the salt.

We ran out onto the salt, which gave the eeriest feeling of being out on a lake, as if we jumped too hard, we might fall through. We then tasted the salt. It was salty. Then we turned around a drove back.

Salt Lake City

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The last time I traveled to Utah, I was rafting in Moab, which was amazing. Since I was traveling to Salt Lake for work, I had high hopes it would be beautiful, but not having too much time to be outside, the expectations were a bit lower.

First stop, Temple Square. This is an area in the heart of Salt Lake City, that is owned by the Church of Later Day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon church:


The Temple is of limits to visitors, Mormon or not, and only "Spiritually prepared" people can go in. It was very beautiful.

We walking into the North Visitors' center, and were rushed into a tour that was just departing. The tours are lead by missionaries from all over the world, and they had badges with flags from where they had come from (ours were from Canada, US, and Brazil). Apparently, according to wikipedia:

The visitors' centers and grounds are staffed by sister missionaries, and senior missionary couples exclusively; no single male missionaries are called to serve on Temple Square.

I can only really describe the visitor center as the Epcot center for the church of LDS. The tour lead us through carpeted rooms with stories of the church, with soundtracks and lcds with videos about the church. Very frequently one of the sisters would start her discussion with "I'm grateful to the church because", so it wasn't exactly the museum experience I was looking for.

While everyone was extremely friendly, there was a more of a sense of persuasion rather than description. I thought we were visiting a museum, but I think it is more for recruitment. We were bombarded with cards to evaluate the presentations, and to give out our mailing information, to receive materials. I also didn't get a sense that the sisters, who were no doubt in their early twenties, knew much more than their scripted descriptions.

I asked very plain questions, so as to not seem too aggressive (which is sometimes difficult for me), and straightforward answers were not forthcoming. For example, why there were no women Apostles or Prophets? This is a question I assumed, incorrectly, that this young woman might have contemplated. She had no answer, and changed the subject. I assumed that a tour guide at a facility like this would be able to answer questions such as that in a more confident and compelling way.


The rest of Temple square was very clean, and well maintained, with some ornate fountains and other buildings.

Inauguration opening ceremony at Licoln Memorial

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As I said I headed down about three hours early. When I walked onto the Mall, it didn't seem all that crowded. Of course there was a lot of security/sniper looking camouflaged men and women.



The weather looks dingy in the pictures, but it wasn't that bad. Probably about 30 F, but I had on two hats, two pairs of socks, two pairs of pants, a sweater, a hoodie, and two pairs of gloves. So I was ok with the weather, and didn't really get cold for the five hours I was standing around.

Then I started to walk down towards the Lincoln Memorial, and they shuffles us to the sides and into very long lines. The lines moved pretty fast though, so I wasn't there for more than half an hour. After they made us take out all of our electronics and turn them on, I got a quick pat down and I was in.

That was where I found all of the people. Folks had parked themselves all over the areas around the reflecting pool. Many had blankets and food, and cards and other forms of entertainment. The rest of us just stood. I walked up as close as I could get and over the course of the next few hours it packed in. At some point all of the people who were on the ground ended up standing up and there was no room to be had.



When the ceremony started the speaker that was closest to our corner wasn't working, so all we could see was the screens, and people started to shout, and chant "Turn it up", for about five minutes until it was resolved.



There were people climbing trees, and even on the tops of the port-o-potties.

It was hard to see the stage, but we all had views of multiple screens, and had made friends with the people sharing your personal space over the last three hours, although there was a few people who's disposition worsened over the course of the wait. I tried to just focus on standing properly so I wouldn't get tired.


The speakers and performers ran the gamut of different celebrities, the most enthusiastic were Bono, Garth Brooks, Bruce Springsteen, Usher, Stevie Wonder, and Mary J. Blige, although there were many more. Of course Obama was the biggest crowd pleaser.

Retracing the path Abraham Lincoln took in 1861

Pulling into the train station ahead of Obama's vintage train that was retracing the path Abraham Lincoln took in 1861, was most likely the closest I will get to him over the next three days. They hustled us off the train through a cloud of security, including probably about twenty police dogs. I was a little disoriented and stopped to ask one of the people in uniform where the front of the station, and she just yelled at me to keep walking. Okay. Thanks.
Once we were inside the gate there, there was a crowd waiting for him, but since I had a backpack roughly the size of my body, and some other luggeage, and my college roommate who was picking me up was outside, I didn't wait around to see him pull in. Apparently he didn't either.

Obama's train

Some of the delay must have been because Obama's train was in front of us. We just pulled into Baltimore right next to his train and a lot of security. After passing him, at every stop, every street that had a view of the tracks had cops and people lined up waving and taking pictures. Even people waving flags! It's sort of like being in a high speed parade!

Starting off a long train ride waiting..

The pricey ticket seemed worth it for bypassing traffic on 95 south heading to the largest celebration Washington has ever seen. Now sitting at union station in New Haven looking up at the hours worth of delays on all south bound trains I wonder if there wasn't a better way to get there. Maybe by bike?