Spiral Jetty & ATK

Spiral Jetty

Location: Near Promontory Point . . . look it up ;)Cost: Free

Kid friendly: Yes
Time Spent: 1 hour, could've/should've spent 2 or 3
Worth going back: Yes!

Have you ever heard of the Spiral Jetty? I first heard about it in an Art class in college, then I heard my brother say he had gone to it with a few friends, and then my friend at work said that he goes there yearly with his scouts. We had to see it! It's about a 2 hour drive from layton and not very difficult to find (there are signs). The other cool thing is that the Golden Spike railroad thing is right there on the way, and you can also stop by ATK and see the rocket/missile display!

So here's the Jetty. Pretty cool looking!

There's a nice little plaque that tells explains a little about the Jetty. Andrea was trying a whacky hairstyle. That's all I have to say about that.

The boys had fun walking out on the spiral.

Beyond the spiral there are salt flats. It seems like you are walking on Ice out there. The salt is so smooth and even. 

The edge of the lake is almost imperceptible because the water is only millimeters deep in the beginning. It makes for some cool reflective photos. 

There's an area where the salt crust has buckled against itself and created "mini-mountains." Peter has been interested in how mountains are made recently, so this was a great visual aid to help explain plate tectonics! He also enjoyed peeling the crust off of the sand. I guess it's like picking at a giant scab :)

Poor Max got salt in his eye at one point. 

That was seriously one of the coolest places I've ever been! It's so secluded out there and the landscape feels like you're on a different planet. I hope to go back several more times over the years. Next time we should bring some things for the kids to play with in the sand. Or we could make mini-spiral jetties like Andrea saw.

ATK Missile Display

Location: Near Promontory Point . . . look it up ;)Cost: Free

Kid friendly: Yes
Time Spent: 1/2 hour
Worth going back: Yes!

One of Peter's current obsessions is Space and Astronauts, so this rocket/missile display is what actually put us over the edge and made us decide to go and see the spiral jetty this weekend while Peter's interest is still hot, because this rocket display is right there on the way. Seriously, it's like a 3 minute detour.

Isn't it every boy's dream at some point or another to go to space?

Peter was so happy to see all of the rockets. I was happy too! I didn't think it would be as cool as it is! Seeing the actual size of some of this stuff is jaw dropping. Like that vertical thing right there in the picture below, that's actually just a missile. Wow.

That big horizontalish cylinder in the background is one of the rockets that they use to launch space shuttles. It's. Huge. 

This is a segment of that type of rocket. Good place for a family picture. 

It kind of echos when you're in it too, so the boys liked stomping in there for a while. 

So yeah, another must-see.

These last pictures are from the birthday party we had this afternoon for Max and Cache. Lauren and Caleb were already having the family gather for Caches birthday which is tomorrow, so they invited us to piggy back on there party since Max's birthday is in just a week or so. Caleb made Cache a tiger cake, and I made Max puppy cupcakes. It was fun!

It was a fun weekend, but very busy. I realized that if we keep going on these outings every weekend we'll run ourselves ragged, so we'll need to rethink and adjust some things. Maybe we don't need to physically go somewhere, we just need to plan a dedicated family activity.

It's funny, I asked Peter what he liked best out of the things that we have done so far this year and he said "I liked it when we went to the solar system (aka the park)." It's amazing to me how simple children are. They seem to prefer food that is as plain as possible. They don't care about going far and wide to explore the world. They just want our attention. I think getting away and doing something different helps to focus my attention on my kids and my family, but I can just hear Peter in his head thinking "why does this have to be so complicated, Dad? Just play with me."

I love those boys. I love Andrea. I'm so happy.