Under The Mountain In Salt Lake City

As I sit here in the Flying J at Salt Lake City, Utah I realize I have a lot of time on my hands.  That means it's picture time.  I was looking at the mountains yesterday, and knew I should take some pictures of them.  However, my batteries have a habit of dying quickly.  That, or my camera chews them up like pieces of gum.  I suspect a little bit of both.  But I did manage to get them recharged, and they were ready to go this morning.

A lot of people think that Salt Lake City is in the middle of the desert, but that's not so.  It's more on the side of the desert.  It sits underneath a series of mountains.  So there is quite a bit of vegatation and water around the area.  Like a lot of Western cities they get their water from pack ice off the mountains. 

It's always an interesting trip driving into Salt Lake from Wyoming.  You go up and down the mountains for about an hour.  Going from East to West it is mostly downhill.  However, going from West to East with a heavy load is always interesting.  Going up the mountain with a combined weight of 70,000 to 80,000 pounds makes the truck go slow.  Really slow.  As in, you are creeping up the hill at 25 MPH while all the cars go by you at 55 to 65 MPH.

Once you get into Salt Lake City, and finally park you can see how beautiful the area is.  Here are the pictures I took this morning.

The Bonneville Salt Flats

And there I was.  It was 7 PM, and the sun was setting.  I wanted to get a few pictures, but the sun was glaring off the sand.  Every time I have gone through Utah it has always been night.  However, this time it was finally daytime as I drove through the Bonneville Salt Flats. 

I will always remember the first time I drove through Bonneville.  It was nighttime, but a full moon was out.  The salt sparkled like a million diamonds for miles and miles.  There was just me, the moon, and the biggest sandbox I had ever seen out at that time of night.

I vowed to make sure I took pictures the next time I drive through Bonneville.  And that's what I did.  Even though it was not a great time to take the best pictures, I did the best I could. 

You can see the long shadows from the sun setting in the West.  I took these pictures on July 1, 2011.