Grumpy Bulldog Does America Day 34: Farewell SLC

Originally the plan was to leave Salt Lake City on Monday.  But when I actually mapped out how to get from Salt Lake to Phoenix, with a stop in Vegas, I only needed 3 days to do it, so I had an extra day to stay here.  And since Michael Offutt had to work, I couldn't just hang around with him.

I remembered when I was arriving in the city there was a state park on the edge of the Great Salt Lake.  It seemed like it might be nice to get some actual pictures of the lake instead of a couple fuzzy ones out the car window.

The GPS told me the Saltair concert venue was the state park, but the actual state park is down the road about 2 miles and much crappier looking, basically a shack.  They have kind of the honor system going on where you grab an envelope and put $3 in it and slip it into a slot.  I might have skipped it but there were actually people there so someone might have checked my car and noticed I didn't have a slip on the dashboard.

Anyway, here's a picture of Great Salt Lake:

I have like 100 more but cheap motels have cheaper wifi, so I'll have to load them later.  You get the gist.  If you read my post about the aquarium, I might have mentioned the Great Salt Lake only has brine shrimp in it.  Walking out to the edge of the lake, I could see a lot of the shrimp in the water.  And a lot of seagulls to eat the shrimp.

I was there about an hour and then went to find somewhere to eat.  I ended up at Chili's in the city.  They have a sign saying that one spot is for To Go only and violators will be "crushed and melted."  These guys really play for keeps!  Anyway, I got this California avocado/chicken flatbread that was kind of like a pizza, only not so much cheese and a little different sauce.  It was pretty good, though a little spicier than I'd prefer.

I went to the crappy America's Best Value Inn to check in and then edited for a couple of hours before meeting Michael Offutt at his house.  We walked to this place called Hires; I remember in Michigan they used to have Hires root beer, though I'm not sure if it's the same or not.  They do have good hamburgers.  (Though not the best because no green olives.)  The waitress was kind of surly and got my order wrong initially.  They have this thing called "fry sauce" that is just mayo/ketchup.  They sell it for $5 a bottle, as if you couldn't just go buy a bottle of mayo and a bottle of ketchup and mix them.

After walking back to Michael Offutt's house, we watched TV for a while.  We watched "Gotham" which was OK, though the Bruce Wayne parts seemed kind of pointless.  I mean in the scheme of things it's supposed to show the whole process of how he becomes Batman, but the scenes don't really move the plot of the episode forward as he has nothing to do with it.  Now if he was actually solving the crimes that would be something else.  We watched "Sleepy Hollow" which like Dr. Who is kind of goofy; Benedict Arnold was possessed by a "Judas coin!"  Um, OK.  "The Blacklist" was OK but I got a little lost in the whole plot of the episode.

So anyway, now it's time to push on to Cedar City and then Vegas, baby!  Heartfelt thanks to Michael Offutt and his crew for including me this weekend and making this a really fun stay.