Day 18: Salt Lake, UT to Rawlins, WY

This morning, the weather was warm and sunny. We really wanted to experience swimming in the Great Salt Lake, so I went to the campsite office and asked where is the nearest access point to swim in the lake. The young lady looked a bit confused and explained that it really isn't for swimming, that the only place she knew of to access it would be Antelope Island.
So even though it was kind of back-tracking, we drove the 20 minutes to Antelope Island where there was a "beach". As we crossed the bridge to the island it was interesting that the GPS showed us over water on both sides, when in fact it just looked like desert for about 3/4 of the bridge! Then we finally reached water!

The beach was similar ... a really long walk from the parking lot to the water line.

 We did it anyway after applying a lot of sunblock! As we got closer to the water there was a rotten, stinky smell. Also, what looked like a darker color of sand turned out to be swarms of tiny flies. As you walked near them they swarmed away from you like a wave! It was really kind of gross, but the kids found it fascinating to run along and create a wave of swarming flies.

When we got to the water, I let the 3 guys go in first, since I wanted to take pictures. It took a while to get in, since it was so shallow, but as soon as they were waist deep, they started exclaiming about the buoyancy of the water and really felt it being so different than a usual lake or ocean. Ben could not stop giggling about how it floated him.

 I took lots of photos and then wanted to experience it, too.
So Alex took the camera and I went in just enough to float. it did feel weird, but I had no need to stay in it long. The guys swam way out into the lake and spent a long time in the water, really enjoying it!

The other cool thing about Antelope Island was the wildlife. We saw more Bison as well as a group of antelope!

The rest of the day we just drove on to get back east. We had hoped to make it to Laramie, WY, but Daryl decided we should eat a good steak while in Wyoming, so we stopped in Rawlins, where we found a fancy restaurant called "Aspen House Restaurant". We checked in and were told it would be a 30 minute wait. There were customer comment cards hanging on a bulletin board and I just happened to read one that said "we drove up from Colorado to eat here again, because it was so good the first time!" Pretty impressive!
Well, it was a delicious meal and we did all have some form of steak. After that we did not drive any farther, but stayed at a truck stop (since we had spent all our money on dinner!).