Thursday 9/19/24 Day 10 Bonneville Salt Flats KFC#1 Jones High County RV

 

Thursday 9/19/24  Day 10 Bonneville Salt Flats, First KFC and Jones High Country RV

We boondocked near the Bonneville Salt Flats last night. Boondocking, generally, is parking your RV on a bit of government land and spending the night. There typically aren't any designated camp sites, you just find a spot you like and park for the night.

We found a beautifully sparse site and loved it.

We enjoyed a beautiful sunrise, the full moon was still up and the sunrise colored the sky gorgeous pale shades of lavender, pink, and yellow. There is very little vegetation, but still a stark beauty with the craggy mountains and cloudless blue sky after the sun rose more.

,,,and the full moon was still in the blue sky!

And took a long walk through the desert

      Casting long shadows

    

We loved it! And it's FREE! (thank you tax payers!)

We headed east on I-80, driving nearby or on the location of sections of the California wagon train trail and Pony express trail and near the Great Basin.  We passed by the south end of the Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island.

Helen has an app called Roadside America. It’s full of off-beat places to stop and explore as you drive around the country. We found the May Museum using the app and we also found three “interesting” things to see on our way from the salt flats to Jones High Country RV.

The first was Metaphor, the Tree of Utah,  a towering 87 foot metal tree sculpture that is the only vertical thing for hours along I-80!

Next was a 33’ foot iguana made thousands of hand carved metal scales. It was built for the owner of a restaurant who thought it would bring in business, I guess. It was in Salt Lake City, and we had a very difficult time finding it… you’d think a 33’ iguana would be hard to miss….

We drove around and around, getting stopped at a railroad crossing for about 20 minutes while the train did something very important…The iguana was tucked back in the restaurant parking lot and there was no way for us to park our 48’ truck and trailer to get out and look.  I think H was able to snap a picture of his spiny back scales as we drove past.

Disappointed, we kept on… to our next “Must-See” attraction, the world’s first Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurant! Complete with a (near) life-sized bronze statue of the Colonel himself, and someone they claimed was the owner of this first franchise.

This place was like Mecca for Helen… she worked at KFC way back in 1974!  Oh, what memories this place brought back… the smell of the 11 Herbs & Spices that had permeated her uniform and would waft through her house whenever her freshly laundered uniform hit the dryer.   She harkened back nostalgically to the days when KFC used to sell single-person pies: chocolate, banana crème, and coconut crème. Alas, like the dinosaurs, they are with us no longer.

We bought a 3-piece box with a biscuit and two sides: H ordered cole slaw, and I ordered mashed potatoes and gravy. 

  

 

We “enjoyed” our meal at Fairmont Park, beautiful local park with winding paths, pickleball courts, grass, and big trees. There are Black Eyed Susan's growing everywhere - wild and in peoples gardens.

 

We finally made it through all the Salt Lake City traffic, through Provo, and on to Jones High Country RV. 

Not the nicest place we’ve ever stayed… the sites were very close together, like wide parking lot stalls. Each stall had power, water, and sewer connections, but the people who has already moved in seemed to be using connections from their neighbor’s site…so we did the same.

Next: The Pando Tree and Capital Reef NP.