Farrah and I spent the last four days at a music and arts festival outside of Salt Lake City on the dusty, scorched salt flats in the desert south of the Great Salt Lake.  The festival was being held on the property of Bonneville Seabase which is a geothermally heated, salt water, high altitude mini ocean with colorful marine tropical fish in the middle of Utah.  Apparently the water pools around the property have been stocked with a multitude of tropical fish including several docile nurse sharks.  People pay to snorkel and scuba dive at Seabase.  Kind of novel.   Unfortunately the pools do not have the beautiful cerulean blue waters generally associated with the tropics and instead have the visibility of a desert mud puddle which inhibited our ability to see many of the creatures lurking below.  Overall the festival was a good time with many art installations built throughout, art cars cruising around and several different workshops available for free to all in attendance.  On Friday a maelstrom blew through the area uprooting several structures, soaking everything and wreaking general havoc on those that were not prepared for extreme weather.  Farrah and I were prepared and we did just fine despite the thick mud that seemed to stick to everything with an amazing constancy I’ve never witnessed in mud before.

We are heading to Jackson Hole, Wyoming tomorrow afternoon.  We’re going to take a few days to make our way there and we’ll be visiting the high Uinta Mountains on the way.  Salt Lake City has been a little tiring with the close proximity to the bustle and grit of the city and we’re looking forward to being in a smaller town for a while.

Here’s a few pictures of the past week.

Riding the tram

Partaking in my domestic duties.  Washing dishes is never the daily highlight but is definitely required.

Take a good look at that beard and mustache.  It’s coming off this week.  I have always wanted to grow a beard just to experience it.   Now I have.  I think I prefer my clean-shaven look a little bit more though.

Farrah on top of the mountain!  I’d like to say that we hiked all the way to the top but we actually rode a tram for the first 11,000 feet and hiked the final 1,000 feet to the summit.

Moose!  This moose had two calves that are barely visible in the background.  I didn’t want to get any closer and induce her protective nature.  Apparently moose can be very territorial, especially when they have calves with them.  I don’t think I would be able to hold my own against a 1,500 pound moose.

This is a tunnel that goes all the way through the mountain at Snowbird.  You can ski into one end and right out of the other end which puts you in a different basin.   Unique.

We decided to put a little art of our own on the van.  We’ve painted a series of trees down each side.  Washington state represent!

This art car called “Chatterbox” was in the camp next to ours at the festival.

Farrah at camp.  I wish I would have taken a few more pictures but the rain kept me from getting my camera out as much as I wanted to.